This novel brought back an extremely difficult period that happened in my son’s life. When my son was around 12, he had an accident at the skateboard park. His head struck the ground so hard it literally cracked his helmet in two pieces. He was hospitalized overnight, and for several weeks after he had moments of extreme disorientation. It was so hard on him, and his family and friends. This YA contemporary novel will help to make the confusion and suffering a traumatic brain injury causes easier to understand.
This is an amazingly moving and realistic story of the challenges a girl faces in her life after a horrific traumatic brain injury.
When 15-year-old Robin Saunders and her best friend Emily climb the Sling Shot ride at Fun Towne one night because as Emily says “you were supposed to go a little crazy once in a while; its practically our duty”, the unbelievable happens. From several stories up, in the middle of that dark, cold night, Emily and Robin fall.
Robin wakes up, confused, in horrible pain and unable to remember anything after Emily and her had looked up at the ride. She has problems understanding what is being said to her, trouble remembering the right words to use and no ideas on how to do basic things like showering. But even more painful and troubling is that Emily won’t wake up.
Robin just wants Emily to wake up but first she must find her way in a mind-boggling new world and a new life without her best friend to help her.
A contemporary young adult fiction novel that I would recommend to anyone. The story was well plotted, well paced and very believable. The characters are not written as perfect people, but as real people, with real flaws. Each chapter was headed with either a word, Gravity, or a sentence, We’re here to help you freak out, that described perfectly what was in the chapter. It gave the story a touch of teenage humor and sarcasm that isn’t always there in other YA novels.
I received my copy through LibraryThing and my review was unsolicited.
Susan
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