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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
Read for Concorde Book Awards 2016.
Front Cover Thoughts: I really can't wait until I get to this book, it looks so good!
Last Page Thoughts: Really does make you think.
So I'm not going to write a full review about this one, because I don't want to give it all away. It's basically a book about coincidences, to make a long story short. It's very informative with a very interesting POV. I have a few problems with it, hence the 4 stars rather than 5. (1). The POV is from a 16yr old - I felt that one of the major plot lines was proving she's not stupid. Nevertheless, the way she said things, it made her sound like a 12yr old. to me, it felt as if Mercus Sedgwick was like, "right I'm going to write a book from a child's point of view," and actually 16yrs old is not a child anymore. You're halfway between growing up at that stage, and I think Laureth should have been credited with a voice that shows that. (2). It was written too 'punchily'. Sometimes I felt like there was a lot more time passing than was written down, especially towards the end of the story when things got a bit more exciting.
Overall, this book was really interesting. It shows what we value in life, in a way, and how unimportant it really is. I think I would recommend this book to most people, to people who like YA, to people who like adventures, to people who like factual fiction, to people who like mystery, and to people who like to read about things they haven't experienced or don't know too much about. so it covers a wide spectrum :)
Front Cover Thoughts: I really can't wait until I get to this book, it looks so good!
Last Page Thoughts: Really does make you think.
So I'm not going to write a full review about this one, because I don't want to give it all away. It's basically a book about coincidences, to make a long story short. It's very informative with a very interesting POV. I have a few problems with it, hence the 4 stars rather than 5. (1). The POV is from a 16yr old - I felt that one of the major plot lines was proving she's not stupid. Nevertheless, the way she said things, it made her sound like a 12yr old. to me, it felt as if Mercus Sedgwick was like, "right I'm going to write a book from a child's point of view," and actually 16yrs old is not a child anymore. You're halfway between growing up at that stage, and I think Laureth should have been credited with a voice that shows that. (2). It was written too 'punchily'. Sometimes I felt like there was a lot more time passing than was written down, especially towards the end of the story when things got a bit more exciting.
Overall, this book was really interesting. It shows what we value in life, in a way, and how unimportant it really is. I think I would recommend this book to most people, to people who like YA, to people who like adventures, to people who like factual fiction, to people who like mystery, and to people who like to read about things they haven't experienced or don't know too much about. so it covers a wide spectrum :)
I've been debating whether I should give this 3 or 4 stars (when will goodreads finally introduce half star ratings?), but I decided to settle on 3.
There is a lot of elements that I like in books - I loved the sibling relationship in here, Laureth was a great character, it had some unusual and interesting facts. But in the end, the whole plot felt a little too far-fetched for me for a realistic contemporary novel, so I had to take down one star. I think I might re-read it one day, so maybe I'll change my mind then.
There is a lot of elements that I like in books - I loved the sibling relationship in here, Laureth was a great character, it had some unusual and interesting facts. But in the end, the whole plot felt a little too far-fetched for me for a realistic contemporary novel, so I had to take down one star. I think I might re-read it one day, so maybe I'll change my mind then.
She is Not Invisible by Markus Sedgewick
1. This is my first Sedgewick novel even though it’s the most recent of his novels to be added to my list. To be honest, I just saw it in the library before I saw the other ones. It was… eh? I mean, the concept was interesting but the execution fell flat. The book wasn’t bad, I just felt like it would’ve worked better if it was a short story or came in the form of the author’s notes.
2. She is Not Invisible follows Laureth (yes, like the ingredient in shampoos), a blind girl, and her little brother Benjamin (and Stan, his stuffed raven) to New York from London as they search for their missing father. He’s not responding to any messages and his novel’s notes hint at danger. But the search is a lot harder than it could be because Laureth can’t see and Benjamin breaks most electronic things he touches.
3. We didn’t get off to a good start with Laureth basically admitting she was kidnapping her brother in a flight across the Atlantic. They’re both minors and their parents weren’t aware and aargh it was mega frustrating. But hey, they were worried about their dad’s safety when they found out he was in New York instead of Switzerland and he wasn’t responding to any calls or messages. Mum was acting all weird when the kids brought him up so maaaaaybe they were justified in going after him.
4. That being said, the mystery could have been solved with a little communication. I won’t go into details but everything they came across would have been a lot clearer if everyone was a little more upfront about what they were doing and didn’t keep any secrets just ‘cause.
5. One shining aspect of the book was the descriptions. A few years ago I read Whisper by Chrissie Keighery and when I told my sister the narrator became deaf after an illness she said, ‘But how is she going to describe things and have conversations? Wouldn’t it be boring?’ No, it wasn’t, because she used sign language, lip reading, writing, subtitles and her other four senses. In this book, Laureth says the most she can distinguish is a really bright window in a really dark room (after making the point that not all that many blind people are completely blind). But she still describes! There’s an especially nice moment towards the end of the book when she describes her blindness to another character. She puts her hands over his eyes and asks him what he can hear. When he responds with ‘traffic’, she says she can hear a car or bus go past, two people arguing about a truck, horns beeping, people yelling and the like. THAT is how you describe.
6. Another great aspect: Towards the end of the book Laureth says something about messages in the first word of every chapter. Sure enough, when I looked back there was a lovely message that basically said she didn’t need sight to deal with her disability but love, respect, understanding and accommodation. It’s a really important message for those of us who can see.
7. Benjamin was a lil cutie. I loved his trust in Laureth, his love of comics, his stuffed raven Stan and the system he and his sister shared when walking in public: Laureth didn’t want people to know she was blind and deal with the hassle it created so they’d hold hands and he’d use touch to show her which direction to walk.
8. One of the biggest drawbacks, however, was that the payoff felt so cheap. The mysteries were waved off with a little ‘Oh yeah, those things didn’t have anything to do with what you thought, haha, moving on.’
9. But I’m not too bothered by that because this was a really fast read. I read it in between uni lectures and on the way home and was done with most of it within a day. And I’m a pretty slow reader, so that was remarkable.
10. As I said in my first point, I don’t think this book was justified in going for over 350 pages (except to add the amount of pages to the list of coincidences in the book). The plot felt a little too thin to carry for that long but the characters were satisfying.
1. This is my first Sedgewick novel even though it’s the most recent of his novels to be added to my list. To be honest, I just saw it in the library before I saw the other ones. It was… eh? I mean, the concept was interesting but the execution fell flat. The book wasn’t bad, I just felt like it would’ve worked better if it was a short story or came in the form of the author’s notes.
2. She is Not Invisible follows Laureth (yes, like the ingredient in shampoos), a blind girl, and her little brother Benjamin (and Stan, his stuffed raven) to New York from London as they search for their missing father. He’s not responding to any messages and his novel’s notes hint at danger. But the search is a lot harder than it could be because Laureth can’t see and Benjamin breaks most electronic things he touches.
3. We didn’t get off to a good start with Laureth basically admitting she was kidnapping her brother in a flight across the Atlantic. They’re both minors and their parents weren’t aware and aargh it was mega frustrating. But hey, they were worried about their dad’s safety when they found out he was in New York instead of Switzerland and he wasn’t responding to any calls or messages. Mum was acting all weird when the kids brought him up so maaaaaybe they were justified in going after him.
4. That being said, the mystery could have been solved with a little communication. I won’t go into details but everything they came across would have been a lot clearer if everyone was a little more upfront about what they were doing and didn’t keep any secrets just ‘cause.
5. One shining aspect of the book was the descriptions. A few years ago I read Whisper by Chrissie Keighery and when I told my sister the narrator became deaf after an illness she said, ‘But how is she going to describe things and have conversations? Wouldn’t it be boring?’ No, it wasn’t, because she used sign language, lip reading, writing, subtitles and her other four senses. In this book, Laureth says the most she can distinguish is a really bright window in a really dark room (after making the point that not all that many blind people are completely blind). But she still describes! There’s an especially nice moment towards the end of the book when she describes her blindness to another character. She puts her hands over his eyes and asks him what he can hear. When he responds with ‘traffic’, she says she can hear a car or bus go past, two people arguing about a truck, horns beeping, people yelling and the like. THAT is how you describe.
6. Another great aspect: Towards the end of the book Laureth says something about messages in the first word of every chapter. Sure enough, when I looked back there was a lovely message that basically said she didn’t need sight to deal with her disability but love, respect, understanding and accommodation. It’s a really important message for those of us who can see.
7. Benjamin was a lil cutie. I loved his trust in Laureth, his love of comics, his stuffed raven Stan and the system he and his sister shared when walking in public: Laureth didn’t want people to know she was blind and deal with the hassle it created so they’d hold hands and he’d use touch to show her which direction to walk.
8. One of the biggest drawbacks, however, was that the payoff felt so cheap. The mysteries were waved off with a little ‘Oh yeah, those things didn’t have anything to do with what you thought, haha, moving on.’
9. But I’m not too bothered by that because this was a really fast read. I read it in between uni lectures and on the way home and was done with most of it within a day. And I’m a pretty slow reader, so that was remarkable.
10. As I said in my first point, I don’t think this book was justified in going for over 350 pages (except to add the amount of pages to the list of coincidences in the book). The plot felt a little too thin to carry for that long but the characters were satisfying.
What struck me first was how detailed and precise Laureth's narration was, and how intricate her life was like being blind, but that it did not trouble her at all. It was so realistically accurate that I was astounded at how powerful Marcus Sedgwick had written her point of view. Her outlook on the world was strong and vivid, because she had learned to perceive things differently to how others would with sight, and how strong of a poise she had regardless.
The story follows Laureth as she steals her mother's credit card to journey to find out what happened to her father, who's notebook has shown up in New York after he was doing research in Austria. He's been trying to write a novel about coincidence for several years and without success. Laureth's mother thinks he has an obsession with it, though Laureth has her own suspicions, including thinking he might be heading for a breakdown of some sort, but that something just isn't right about the situation. So when she finds out about his notebook showing up nowhere near Austria, and all the way over in NYC, Laureth knows that the pieces don't add up and she must do something...soon.
With her odd little brother Benjamin, she heads off into the unknown territory to find her father. I thought at this point, and at many before and after this point, that Laureth was incredibly brave, yet delicate at times, she had the courage that isn't found in just anybody, but in someone who truly believes in themselves, blind or not.
I was amazed that in the entire novel, there wasn't a moment where I thought I was missing out on any descriptive writing or lacking details, because of Laureth being blind. She was inquisitive and very aware of her surroundings, and that made for a magnificent novel with more power and emotion than I had read in a very long time. I was baffled, fascinated and hooked at the challenges that Laureth and Benjamin and their family went through throughout the novel, and the consequences and coincidence that intertwined with the plot was inevitably brilliant.
A huge five star novel that's surely going to be loved by many more to come, that I thought was astonishing and flawless. Incredible!
read more: http://prettylittlememoirs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/review-she-is-not-invisible-by-marcus.html
The story follows Laureth as she steals her mother's credit card to journey to find out what happened to her father, who's notebook has shown up in New York after he was doing research in Austria. He's been trying to write a novel about coincidence for several years and without success. Laureth's mother thinks he has an obsession with it, though Laureth has her own suspicions, including thinking he might be heading for a breakdown of some sort, but that something just isn't right about the situation. So when she finds out about his notebook showing up nowhere near Austria, and all the way over in NYC, Laureth knows that the pieces don't add up and she must do something...soon.
With her odd little brother Benjamin, she heads off into the unknown territory to find her father. I thought at this point, and at many before and after this point, that Laureth was incredibly brave, yet delicate at times, she had the courage that isn't found in just anybody, but in someone who truly believes in themselves, blind or not.
I was amazed that in the entire novel, there wasn't a moment where I thought I was missing out on any descriptive writing or lacking details, because of Laureth being blind. She was inquisitive and very aware of her surroundings, and that made for a magnificent novel with more power and emotion than I had read in a very long time. I was baffled, fascinated and hooked at the challenges that Laureth and Benjamin and their family went through throughout the novel, and the consequences and coincidence that intertwined with the plot was inevitably brilliant.
A huge five star novel that's surely going to be loved by many more to come, that I thought was astonishing and flawless. Incredible!
read more: http://prettylittlememoirs.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/review-she-is-not-invisible-by-marcus.html
Read for Booktube-a-thon 2017: Read a book you bought because of the cover
354 pages. Because of course it has.
This book is about coincidence, patterns, synchronicity - it's about those comments you see like "Well this proves that Katy Perry is evil because Katy has 4 letters and Perry has 5 letters and 4+5 is 9 and an upside down 9 is 6 and 3 is the square root of 9 so if you have 3 6s that's 666 which is an evil number ergo PROOF"
No offence, Katy Perry.
This book bored me, I was so grateful for the short chapters (while you're reading, note down the first word of each chapter). It's about sixteen year old Laureth, who is blind, travelling to New York with her seven year old brother Ben, to find their Dad, who scared the shite out of me.
He's a writer, obsessed with coincidence and the number 354. Parts of this book made me feel really uneasy (which I presume was the intention), but parts of it were ludicrous (everything that happened in New York).
I do like this author - he's different, and quirky, so his books are always worth a read, but this just wasn't as enjoyable for me as some of his other books. The coincidence stuff was interesting and I'm glad that I can finally put a name to apophenia, but the storyline was weak and Laureth's blindness served no real purpose, if anything it took away from the story, it's very odd to read a story about New York without any descriptors. I also hated the "drama" in New York - their Dad was weird enough, the story didn't need the other events.
354 pages. Because of course it has.
This book is about coincidence, patterns, synchronicity - it's about those comments you see like "Well this proves that Katy Perry is evil because Katy has 4 letters and Perry has 5 letters and 4+5 is 9 and an upside down 9 is 6 and 3 is the square root of 9 so if you have 3 6s that's 666 which is an evil number ergo PROOF"
No offence, Katy Perry.
This book bored me, I was so grateful for the short chapters (while you're reading, note down the first word of each chapter). It's about sixteen year old Laureth, who is blind, travelling to New York with her seven year old brother Ben, to find their Dad, who scared the shite out of me.
He's a writer, obsessed with coincidence and the number 354. Parts of this book made me feel really uneasy (which I presume was the intention), but parts of it were ludicrous (everything that happened in New York).
I do like this author - he's different, and quirky, so his books are always worth a read, but this just wasn't as enjoyable for me as some of his other books. The coincidence stuff was interesting and I'm glad that I can finally put a name to apophenia, but the storyline was weak and Laureth's blindness served no real purpose, if anything it took away from the story, it's very odd to read a story about New York without any descriptors. I also hated the "drama" in New York - their Dad was weird enough, the story didn't need the other events.
I loved this book and I thought that you couldn't "see" anything throughout the novel to be interesting, but the ending made the book worse in my opinion.
I am a fan of Marcus Sedgwick ever since I read Blood Red, Snow White and I have been slowly making my way through his books. She Is Not Invisible is written fairly simple that makes for an easy read, and allows you to easily get to know the characters. I think this is a great book, especially as it adds light on how society reacts to disabled people, and those who are visually impaired and the protagonist Laureth Peak is blind. Therefore She Is Not Invisible adds some diversity and originality to the YA contemporary genre, which is really great. Some great characters, with some good development and relationships with a nice mystery thrown in.
Overall, an enjoyable and refreshing read.
Overall, an enjoyable and refreshing read.
