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3.49 AVERAGE
3.49 AVERAGE
Sedgwick explores the nature of coincidence in this story of a blind British girl embarking on a journey to America to find her father. There are expository passages, rendered in separate fonts, about the greats of our time and their obsession with coincidence, whether it exists, and what it is if it doesn't. I found that all very interesting; would a young adult, though? I am not sure.
The story as it unfolded was intriguing because you are experiencing it from Laureth's perspective, so some scenes are only described in cursory terms; Laureth herself only gets details if her younger brother Benjamin, all of 7 years, is prompted for them or delivers them voluntarily, which a 7 year old is not exactly programmed to do as a matter of course. So, why, for example, does The Black King hotel have a sort of club atmosphere when you walk in, and why are all of the corridors so very dark? I never did understand why, which was kind of interesting in its own way.
I loved that Sedgwick used his own obsession with the number 354 to tell this tale. But, if Laureth and Benjamin hadn't ended up where they did at the end, they would have run out of the ATM money pretty quickly with all of the cab rides they took! ;-) I really kind of wished Sedgwick had had them go on the subway once in awhile. That would have been more interesting adventures.
It was a quick read for me, and I appreciated all of Laureth's comments about interacting with the seeing population and how that is for a blind person.
The story as it unfolded was intriguing because you are experiencing it from Laureth's perspective, so some scenes are only described in cursory terms; Laureth herself only gets details if her younger brother Benjamin, all of 7 years, is prompted for them or delivers them voluntarily, which a 7 year old is not exactly programmed to do as a matter of course. So, why, for example, does The Black King hotel have a sort of club atmosphere when you walk in, and why are all of the corridors so very dark? I never did understand why, which was kind of interesting in its own way.
I loved that Sedgwick used his own obsession with the number 354 to tell this tale. But, if Laureth and Benjamin hadn't ended up where they did at the end, they would have run out of the ATM money pretty quickly with all of the cab rides they took! ;-) I really kind of wished Sedgwick had had them go on the subway once in awhile. That would have been more interesting adventures.
It was a quick read for me, and I appreciated all of Laureth's comments about interacting with the seeing population and how that is for a blind person.
Blurb
TWO DRIED MICE. A FLUFFY RAVEN CALLED STAN. A SUICIDAL AUSTRALIAN BIOLOGIST . . .
Is it coincidence or something more sinister that draws them together? Many strange things collide in Laureth Peak's life one hot August weekend. Perhaps the strangest of all is the way her dad had been acting lately. And now he's disappeared. It looks as if his obsession with coincidence might have fatal consequences.
As Laureth sets off for New York with her strange younger brother, Benjamin, she has little faith in herself. But she has a burning determination to find her missing father. She has just one clue to follow; his notebook. Does it contain salvation, or madness?
My Review
Now I'm not fond of the blurb. In fact, I wasn't going to pick this book up at all because of it. The reason I did is down to my partner - who doesn't read. He said it sounded good and that intrigued me because I couldn't see it. So here I am with the book on my shelf. And let me tell you, I'm glad he made me reconsider.
'She Is Not Invisible' was a great, easy read. So easy in fact, I struggled to put it down. I read the whole thing - all 354 pages of it - in just one day. It might have been the mystery or the tone and rhythm of the narration, I don't know, but I just fell into it.
I loved Laureth's narration so I was on to a winner. The narrative jumped around in a natural chatty way that was surprisingly easy to follow. I also found Laureth realistic and relatable. By the end, I really wanted to be her friend - which happens to me a lot. However, Laureth's brother, Benjamin, took longer for me to warm up to. Perhaps that was because I felt he was too babyish for seven sometimes. But as the book went on and I got to know the character better, I realised why Sedgwick had written him that way and I took my snap judgement back.
Laureth's father is a writer and every time she mentioned him or his work or his process, I just ate it up. I love to hear about authors in books and that'll always be the case. It always has been."Maybe writers are just a bit bonkers anyway." How can you not love that?
What really blew me away though was how it all came together. The last few paragraphs particularly, made me insanely happy. I won't be able to explain it, but if you read the book, you'll know just what I'm talking about.
Let me leave you with this. 'She Is Not Invisible' is an incredibly clever book that gets cleverer and cleverer as you read it. I will most definitely remember this book for a long time.
Evaluation
Overall 9/10
Would I recommend it? Yes! It is too clever to miss and so easy to pick up.
Would I look up the author? Yes. I'd like to see what other 'diamonds and pearls' Sedgwick has written.
'She Is Not Invisible' is an insanely clever book I enjoyed every moment of.
First Blogged Here: http://bit.ly/FangsClawsandWings
TWO DRIED MICE. A FLUFFY RAVEN CALLED STAN. A SUICIDAL AUSTRALIAN BIOLOGIST . . .
Is it coincidence or something more sinister that draws them together? Many strange things collide in Laureth Peak's life one hot August weekend. Perhaps the strangest of all is the way her dad had been acting lately. And now he's disappeared. It looks as if his obsession with coincidence might have fatal consequences.
As Laureth sets off for New York with her strange younger brother, Benjamin, she has little faith in herself. But she has a burning determination to find her missing father. She has just one clue to follow; his notebook. Does it contain salvation, or madness?
My Review
Now I'm not fond of the blurb. In fact, I wasn't going to pick this book up at all because of it. The reason I did is down to my partner - who doesn't read. He said it sounded good and that intrigued me because I couldn't see it. So here I am with the book on my shelf. And let me tell you, I'm glad he made me reconsider.
'She Is Not Invisible' was a great, easy read. So easy in fact, I struggled to put it down. I read the whole thing - all 354 pages of it - in just one day. It might have been the mystery or the tone and rhythm of the narration, I don't know, but I just fell into it.
I loved Laureth's narration so I was on to a winner. The narrative jumped around in a natural chatty way that was surprisingly easy to follow. I also found Laureth realistic and relatable. By the end, I really wanted to be her friend - which happens to me a lot. However, Laureth's brother, Benjamin, took longer for me to warm up to. Perhaps that was because I felt he was too babyish for seven sometimes. But as the book went on and I got to know the character better, I realised why Sedgwick had written him that way and I took my snap judgement back.
Laureth's father is a writer and every time she mentioned him or his work or his process, I just ate it up. I love to hear about authors in books and that'll always be the case. It always has been."Maybe writers are just a bit bonkers anyway." How can you not love that?
What really blew me away though was how it all came together. The last few paragraphs particularly, made me insanely happy. I won't be able to explain it, but if you read the book, you'll know just what I'm talking about.
Let me leave you with this. 'She Is Not Invisible' is an incredibly clever book that gets cleverer and cleverer as you read it. I will most definitely remember this book for a long time.
Evaluation
Overall 9/10
Would I recommend it? Yes! It is too clever to miss and so easy to pick up.
Would I look up the author? Yes. I'd like to see what other 'diamonds and pearls' Sedgwick has written.
'She Is Not Invisible' is an insanely clever book I enjoyed every moment of.
First Blogged Here: http://bit.ly/FangsClawsandWings
She Is Not Invisible is a fun, fast mystery about a blind girl, Laureth, whose father has gone missing and goes on a hunt to find him. To make matters worse, Laureth's mother seems disinterested in their father's disappearance, so 16-year-old Laureth runs away to the United States to find him, and she takes her 7-year old brother to help her. Laureth's father has spent many years writing a book about coincidences and researching the scientific theories behind coincidences, and he has shared what he has learned with his children. Laureth believes she can find her father using the clues that have been left behind before something really terrible happens to him.
This book was really fast paced, which I enjoyed. I also enjoyed trying to find all the hidden messages in the book while I was reading, and if I hadn't known about the hidden messages, I probably would have wanted to read the book again. (For more about the hidden messages, watch this video from the author: https://youtu.be/sJHVzk_vshg. For some more information but some slight spoilers, go here: http://imgur.com/gallery/rpkiw.)
Another plus to the book: I learned a lot while reading it, and it was fascinating. The only downside to the book was the ending seemed a too...easy? Not necessarily forced, but definitely not what I was expecting and I was a little disappointed. But overall, it was still a good book and it generated a lot of discussion in my teen book club.
This book was really fast paced, which I enjoyed. I also enjoyed trying to find all the hidden messages in the book while I was reading, and if I hadn't known about the hidden messages, I probably would have wanted to read the book again. (For more about the hidden messages, watch this video from the author: https://youtu.be/sJHVzk_vshg. For some more information but some slight spoilers, go here: http://imgur.com/gallery/rpkiw.)
Another plus to the book: I learned a lot while reading it, and it was fascinating. The only downside to the book was the ending seemed a too...easy? Not necessarily forced, but definitely not what I was expecting and I was a little disappointed. But overall, it was still a good book and it generated a lot of discussion in my teen book club.
I read this after hearing Marcus Sedgwick speak at Politics & Prose in DC, and hearing him go into so much of the backstory probably gave me a fuller enjoyment of the novel than I would have had if I had just picked it up randomly. 16-year-old Laureth (who we find out fairly early is blind), worried about her missing father and her mother's lack of concern, manages to get herself and her 7-year-old brother from London to NYC, and the two have quite an adventure in their efforts to track him down. The story is a fairly quiet one, and reminded me of [b:The London Eye Mystery|1184305|The London Eye Mystery|Siobhan Dowd|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1181720748s/1184305.jpg|2477548] for slightly older readers. As with his other novels, the language is spare and deliberate... Marcus Sedgwick is not a flowery, throw-words-around-with-abandon kind of author. I loved his sensitive portrayal of Laureth and the challenges she faced in navigating an unfamiliar city-- one of the ways that he researched for the book was by spending a good amount of time at a school for students with visual impairments. My favorite part of the book, though, which I never would have picked up on had I not seen Sedgwick, is the way that he weaves in the number 354 so creatively and subtly. A couple of examples-- every chapter title is three words (three letters--five letters--four letters). The WORD COUNT of the entire novel, for goodness sake, is based on his fascination with the number 354 multiplied by another famous number that you learn about in the book. He's a pretty fascinating guy, and, if the father's character in the story is any reflection of him, kind of a mad genius.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This novel's central motifs are overbearing, and its narrative is secondary to these ideas - at times it reads like an essay around which a story has been loosely wrapped.
The narrative itself is an exercise in the suspension of disbelief, it also tends to jump around quite a lot, and comes across as slightly corny.
The narrative itself is an exercise in the suspension of disbelief, it also tends to jump around quite a lot, and comes across as slightly corny.
Coincidentally (irony intended) I only read J.W. Ironmonger's The Coincidence Authority within the last fortnight. A very different take on the subject of coincidence, chance and synchronicity is the talented Sedgwick's latest.
Skipping around in time, we find ourselves at the airport with Laureth, 16, abducting her 7-year-old brother Benjamin and his toy raven Stan. They are travelling to New York to find their missing father. jack Peak is a popular writer, once known for his funny books, now obsessed with the subject of coincidence and the number 354. It might be a straightforward 'quest' story, but it's not. Laureth is blind. She needs Benjamin to be her eyes on their journey. She has no idea where her father is in the city, only that his writer's notebook has been found there and a reward sought, starting Laureth's determination to find her dad.
It's one of those books that's hard to describe. To describe in any more detail the plot would spoil the marvellous events that happen. We get to see Jack Peak's notes as Laureth and Benjamin try to piece together clues as to his whereabouts. We also get little insights into Laureth's dark world and how she copes with it.
It's a very entertaining read that had me racing to finish in a day. I really admire the ideas and writing of Sedgwick, each book completely different. This would be a superb book for a teenage Book Club to discuss (and comes with ready made readers' notes in the back).
Skipping around in time, we find ourselves at the airport with Laureth, 16, abducting her 7-year-old brother Benjamin and his toy raven Stan. They are travelling to New York to find their missing father. jack Peak is a popular writer, once known for his funny books, now obsessed with the subject of coincidence and the number 354. It might be a straightforward 'quest' story, but it's not. Laureth is blind. She needs Benjamin to be her eyes on their journey. She has no idea where her father is in the city, only that his writer's notebook has been found there and a reward sought, starting Laureth's determination to find her dad.
It's one of those books that's hard to describe. To describe in any more detail the plot would spoil the marvellous events that happen. We get to see Jack Peak's notes as Laureth and Benjamin try to piece together clues as to his whereabouts. We also get little insights into Laureth's dark world and how she copes with it.
It's a very entertaining read that had me racing to finish in a day. I really admire the ideas and writing of Sedgwick, each book completely different. This would be a superb book for a teenage Book Club to discuss (and comes with ready made readers' notes in the back).
Surprisingly cool little book that goes from mystery to almost Lovecraftian (or at least Edgar Allan Poe-ian) type nuttiness at one point, but remains firmly planted in reality. Also respectable but a bit clumsy attempts to sort of explain what it's like being blind, and that blindness doesn't mean lack of independence, etc.