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A review by cjeanne99
The Next Time You See Me by Holly Goddard Jones
1.0
Such great possibilities - but they don't pan out.
A lonely eighth grade girl finds a dead body during a walk in the woods - and doesn't tell anyone. She is taunted at school and her walks in the woods - and the dead body - give her a bit of power over her life. She lives in a household that is centered around her special needs brother - six years her senior. But we don't really learn that much more about him.
The girl is taunted by the popular kids in the eighth grade, including the boy she has a crush on - the boy who knows he has power over his friends behavior and clothing choices. The boy who pushes his classroom behavior to see how much his teachers will take. Yet, he's not sure he wants that power. And his reflection on A Separate Peace - "there was something about Finny that made him (Gene) ache, something that he desired and that desire terrified him, made him weak." was superb. We could watch this student grow and learn some more - but we don't.
Then we have the factory workers - who are an adult version of the middle schoolers. The popular guy who rallies his friends - and the older, overweight co-worker that they tease. It's truly eighth grade all over again.
Middle school teacher Susanna who's sister has disappeared, could she be the body in the woods? Susanna's marriage is falling apart - the detective assigned to help her is a high school crush she hasn't seen in ten years.
Wyatt, the overweight factory worker who is pranked by his co-workers into picking up the tab, runs in to Ronnie, the woman who later disappears. He then has a heart attack and his nurse is a woman he danced with on the night his buddies got him drunk.
The ending left me shaking my head and wondering what in the world just happened? Is the Thanksgiving story a flashback to the previous year? Because Susanna teachers the same curriculum every year? Or is it Thanksgiving from the current time? When Abby would be old enough to understand the upcoming holidays?
We never did get identification of the body in the woods.
A lonely eighth grade girl finds a dead body during a walk in the woods - and doesn't tell anyone. She is taunted at school and her walks in the woods - and the dead body - give her a bit of power over her life. She lives in a household that is centered around her special needs brother - six years her senior. But we don't really learn that much more about him.
The girl is taunted by the popular kids in the eighth grade, including the boy she has a crush on - the boy who knows he has power over his friends behavior and clothing choices. The boy who pushes his classroom behavior to see how much his teachers will take. Yet, he's not sure he wants that power. And his reflection on A Separate Peace - "there was something about Finny that made him (Gene) ache, something that he desired and that desire terrified him, made him weak." was superb. We could watch this student grow and learn some more - but we don't.
Then we have the factory workers - who are an adult version of the middle schoolers. The popular guy who rallies his friends - and the older, overweight co-worker that they tease. It's truly eighth grade all over again.
Middle school teacher Susanna who's sister has disappeared, could she be the body in the woods? Susanna's marriage is falling apart - the detective assigned to help her is a high school crush she hasn't seen in ten years.
Wyatt, the overweight factory worker who is pranked by his co-workers into picking up the tab, runs in to Ronnie, the woman who later disappears. He then has a heart attack and his nurse is a woman he danced with on the night his buddies got him drunk.
The ending left me shaking my head and wondering what in the world just happened? Is the Thanksgiving story a flashback to the previous year? Because Susanna teachers the same curriculum every year? Or is it Thanksgiving from the current time? When Abby would be old enough to understand the upcoming holidays?
We never did get identification of the body in the woods.