The Great Disappointment: A Confession
“Chehak's ambitiously imaginative novel questions the very nature of reality… [a] diverting exploration of metaphysical concepts. Winsome and smartly playful.” —Kirkus Reviews
After being kicked out of her home by her mother, 17-year-old Mollie Mifflin travels from Nowhere, New York, to the home of Emily and Deacon Molene in Brevity, Iowa. Emily is the author of Mollie’s favorite novel, Forevermore, which tells the implausible story of a pair of goblets that will grant any couple their fondest shared wish. Over the summer, Mollie insinuates herself into the Molenes’ lives—cooking and cleaning, and otherwise making herself indispensable to them—even as they are unaware that she has made their attic her home.
After the Molenes meet John and Sarah Steele, a successful but unhappy young couple, Mollie begins to blur the boundary between reality and fiction, coming to believe that the Molenes have used magic goblets to exchange bodies with the Steeles. Is it possible that Mollie’s suspicions are correct, or is she merely a very troubled teenager? And if this fantastical story is true, is it too late to undo the spell?