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nssutton's review against another edition
5.0
When Georges' (with a silent s, named for Seurat) father loses his job, his family is forced to sell their beloved home and move to an apartment in Brooklyn. There, he meets Safer, a boy his age who believes he is a spy. Together, they begin to track the movements of a mysterious neighbor. But as Safer's demands become increasingly complex, Georges is forced to decide just how far he is willing to go for his new friend.
Oh, Rebecca. You got me again.
Each thread of this book is beautiful. There is Georges, struggling to make sense of the changes in his friendships and his family. And Safer, with his binoculars and plans. And Ms. Warner with her high fives, Candy with her bunny slippers and Pigeon with his life-long love of birds. This book made me want to leave love notes with Scrabble tiles and live in an apartment building forever and draw a blue dot on my palm.
I adore the way Stead writes of the city-dwelling middle-schooler, working their way through the world, of their loving families and their steadfast friends. I love the way she throws out breadcrumbs of clues, but when the book comes to it's conclusion, you are still taken by surprise.
Signed ARC received at BEA.
Oh, Rebecca. You got me again.
Each thread of this book is beautiful. There is Georges, struggling to make sense of the changes in his friendships and his family. And Safer, with his binoculars and plans. And Ms. Warner with her high fives, Candy with her bunny slippers and Pigeon with his life-long love of birds. This book made me want to leave love notes with Scrabble tiles and live in an apartment building forever and draw a blue dot on my palm.
I adore the way Stead writes of the city-dwelling middle-schooler, working their way through the world, of their loving families and their steadfast friends. I love the way she throws out breadcrumbs of clues, but when the book comes to it's conclusion, you are still taken by surprise.
Signed ARC received at BEA.
kristi_starr35's review against another edition
4.0
Sweet book. Good, as I've come to expect by Stead. Most resolutions come quickly and easily. Good upper-elementary, lower middle school read.
sandhills_kt's review against another edition
3.0
My kids enjoyed this. They laughed often. The characters were intriguing and easy to love. Good messages in a light tone, perfect for middle graders. Very realistic and believable plot and people.
calynnali's review against another edition
5.0
5 solid stars.
What a quirky bunch of characters.
I loved this book, and can honestly think of no faults in it. It was just a pure joy to read. The characters are interesting and unique, and their development throughout the book was superb. I found the pacing to be perfect, and I was finished in no time. You just breeze through this story effortlessly.
The twist ending was amazing! Everything you thought that you knew about the characters gets flipped around, and they all become so much more deep. While you're reading you're picking up all these clues, but the half truths throw you off from guessing how it's going to pan out.
The ending was beautiful. Not only does the main character learn several handy lessons, but so do many of the side characters.
These characters and their story will not soon be forgotten by me.
I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from the book(this is basically a metaphor for the entire book).
“While the rest of the class is hanging on every syllable that comes out of Mr. Landau's mouth, I'm looking at the false tongue poster and I'm kind of wishing it wasn't wrong. There's something nice about those thick black arrows: sour here, salty there, like there's a right place for everything. Instead of the total confusion the human tongue actually turns out to be.(2)”
What a quirky bunch of characters.
I loved this book, and can honestly think of no faults in it. It was just a pure joy to read. The characters are interesting and unique, and their development throughout the book was superb. I found the pacing to be perfect, and I was finished in no time. You just breeze through this story effortlessly.
The twist ending was amazing! Everything you thought that you knew about the characters gets flipped around, and they all become so much more deep. While you're reading you're picking up all these clues, but the half truths throw you off from guessing how it's going to pan out.
The ending was beautiful. Not only does the main character learn several handy lessons, but so do many of the side characters.
These characters and their story will not soon be forgotten by me.
I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from the book(this is basically a metaphor for the entire book).
“While the rest of the class is hanging on every syllable that comes out of Mr. Landau's mouth, I'm looking at the false tongue poster and I'm kind of wishing it wasn't wrong. There's something nice about those thick black arrows: sour here, salty there, like there's a right place for everything. Instead of the total confusion the human tongue actually turns out to be.(2)”
allsmile's review
4.0
I didn't like this quite as much as When You Reach Me, but still a great story with some great messages. This author writes middle school so accurately, or at least how I remember it.
librariandest's review against another edition
4.0
The theme I took away from this book is the difference between seeing the little dots and seeing the big picture. It was very cleverly explored in lots of ways: Georges Seurat's painting, how to deal with bullies, differences in the perspectives of Georges and Safer, an almost out of nowhere plot twist, and finally the dots on the hands (which is only a cryptic spoiler).
Rebecca Stead again writes with heart, curiosity, and intelligence. For me, this book lacked the wow factor of [b:When You Reach Me|5310515|When You Reach Me|Rebecca Stead|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320395542s/5310515.jpg|6608018], but it was still a great read. I had a small qualm with Safer's family being overly quirky, but that's really just my exhaustion with super quirky characters. I also never really bought in to the whole spying on the man in black plot. It never grabbed me, but it definitely has the potential to grab young readers.
Rebecca Stead again writes with heart, curiosity, and intelligence. For me, this book lacked the wow factor of [b:When You Reach Me|5310515|When You Reach Me|Rebecca Stead|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320395542s/5310515.jpg|6608018], but it was still a great read. I had a small qualm with Safer's family being overly quirky, but that's really just my exhaustion with super quirky characters. I also never really bought in to the whole spying on the man in black plot. It never grabbed me, but it definitely has the potential to grab young readers.
msorto's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
asimilarkite's review against another edition
3.0
When You Reach Me is one of my favorite books of all time, so I 1. was super excited to read this, and 2. had really high expectations.
This was a very good book, but the combination of my high expectations and love for Stead's previous book made me rate this at a "just okay". Rebecca Stead is really good at some things, and this book is no exception. Those things are:
1. Creating realistic and fascinating child characters who are real, complete people.
2. Well-done, realistic family dynamics.
3. Setting -- she knows New York and how it feels like the back of her hand.
However, I kind of felt about this book how I felt about M. Night Shyamalan's movies after The Sixth Sense. I know that sounds weird -- lemme explain. When The Sixth Sense had an amazing twist at the end (in addition to being a really well done story with good characters and scary moments), and was very well received, his thought was, "Well, I guess I have to do that twist thing in every movie!" Unfortunately, the "twist" thing isn't really Shyamalan's strength. His strength is story telling and character and style. And this is Rebecca Stead's strength too.
When You Reach Me had that "twist" feeling in it, that everything falling together and making sense in the end feeling. And she felt like she had to do it again, and she didn't NEED to. She just needed to tell her characters' story. It just seemed like it was trying to hard to have that "everything comes together" feeling, when all it needed was to be true to Safer and Georges and their friendship.
I will definitely continue to read her books, just like I am one of the few people who still watched M. Night Shyamalan movies (until they got REALLY bad). I love her style, her stories, and her characters.
This was a very good book, but the combination of my high expectations and love for Stead's previous book made me rate this at a "just okay". Rebecca Stead is really good at some things, and this book is no exception. Those things are:
1. Creating realistic and fascinating child characters who are real, complete people.
2. Well-done, realistic family dynamics.
3. Setting -- she knows New York and how it feels like the back of her hand.
However, I kind of felt about this book how I felt about M. Night Shyamalan's movies after The Sixth Sense. I know that sounds weird -- lemme explain. When The Sixth Sense had an amazing twist at the end (in addition to being a really well done story with good characters and scary moments), and was very well received, his thought was, "Well, I guess I have to do that twist thing in every movie!" Unfortunately, the "twist" thing isn't really Shyamalan's strength. His strength is story telling and character and style. And this is Rebecca Stead's strength too.
When You Reach Me had that "twist" feeling in it, that everything falling together and making sense in the end feeling. And she felt like she had to do it again, and she didn't NEED to. She just needed to tell her characters' story. It just seemed like it was trying to hard to have that "everything comes together" feeling, when all it needed was to be true to Safer and Georges and their friendship.
I will definitely continue to read her books, just like I am one of the few people who still watched M. Night Shyamalan movies (until they got REALLY bad). I love her style, her stories, and her characters.