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kelleemoye 's review for:
North of Nowhere
by Liz Kessler
Full review at: http://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=976
After a frantic call from her grandmother about her grandad vanishing, Mia and her mother go to the seaside village home of her grandparents to help. Disconnected from everyone and without any clues in the vanishing, Mia finds herself walking on the beach often where she stumbles upon a diary on an abandoned fishing boat. Through the diary, she begins exchanging notes with a girl named Dee, a young girl who lives on a nearby island, who she instantly connects with. It is through these exchanges that Mia begins to notice some weird things and a new mystery opens up right in front of her.
I really like Mia’s voice. Her voice is so authentic teenager that it was like listening to an 8th grader telling me the story. I think this is key because I think it’ll help readers draw into the story since it is a mystery that slowly unravels. Hearing Mia tell it will mean that it is almost like hearing the story from a friend. I also thought that the whole idea behind the mystery was quite clever, but I can’t really talk about it because it would give away the ending! So, read and we’ll discuss.
This book was very hard to rate, because I figured out the mystery quite early on; however, I know that if I gave this to a book club of middle schoolers they would be predicting and trying to figure out the mystery the whole book until the reveal. The 3 stars is for me- the adult reader. I think a middle school reader would definitely give it at least 4 stars. It would keep them on the edge of their seats.
After a frantic call from her grandmother about her grandad vanishing, Mia and her mother go to the seaside village home of her grandparents to help. Disconnected from everyone and without any clues in the vanishing, Mia finds herself walking on the beach often where she stumbles upon a diary on an abandoned fishing boat. Through the diary, she begins exchanging notes with a girl named Dee, a young girl who lives on a nearby island, who she instantly connects with. It is through these exchanges that Mia begins to notice some weird things and a new mystery opens up right in front of her.
I really like Mia’s voice. Her voice is so authentic teenager that it was like listening to an 8th grader telling me the story. I think this is key because I think it’ll help readers draw into the story since it is a mystery that slowly unravels. Hearing Mia tell it will mean that it is almost like hearing the story from a friend. I also thought that the whole idea behind the mystery was quite clever, but I can’t really talk about it because it would give away the ending! So, read and we’ll discuss.
This book was very hard to rate, because I figured out the mystery quite early on; however, I know that if I gave this to a book club of middle schoolers they would be predicting and trying to figure out the mystery the whole book until the reveal. The 3 stars is for me- the adult reader. I think a middle school reader would definitely give it at least 4 stars. It would keep them on the edge of their seats.