ISBN: 9780986957
Eighteen isn’t too young to run your life into the ground, but it’s not too old to fix it, either. The desire for change drives Willa Kirk from St. John’s, Newfoundland back to her hometown of Smiths Falls, Ontario, away from her mistakes and the place where her sister died. She’s looking for a place to settle and rebuild, but Jem Harper just wants to get out of town, back to the life he knew before cancer. By letting the tragedies in their lives define them, they are both dying a little more every day. Welcome to the wake.
Abria Mattina
Author of WAKE
Books as Holiday Gifts
It’s almost New Year’s Eve, and aside from the obvious things that go along with it— family obligations, parties, alcohol— there are resolutions to make. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully kept one of mine. I got lazy, or forgot, or simply set the bar too high.
Or maybe it’s that I’ve never been motivated to suddenly or radically change my life. That’s a motivation that both protagonist in Wake share, though. Wake a novel is about taking charge of your life, shaping your identity, and coming to terms with the past. At New Year’s we look to the future. What if you felt that your future had been stolen from you? Jem Harper’s plans were ruined by cancer. His senior year is a wash, not that he’ll be graduating on time now, and his dreams of being a professional musician have been shattered by the effects of chemotherapy. He hates the way he looks, resents his sense of loneliness, and prefers to look back instead of forward—back to a time before cancer.
What if you had to divorce your past to have any hope of a future? Willa Kirk did an exemplary job of screwing up her life after the death of her sister, and no amount of self- reform can change the way people perceive her. She moves away, leaving behind the evidence of her bad experiences, and tries to carve out a new life for herself. If only it were that easy.
If there’s a change you want to make this coming year, I encourage you to do it. No matter how frightening, difficult, or absurd, I believe that each of us can better our lives if we truly want to.
Happy New Year, and happy reading.
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Abria Mattina's links
http://www.abriamattina.com
My Thoughts:
I received this ebook and I was not sure if I could get through it or not as it was quite long. The topic was also a bit depressing. That said, I am glad I stuck with it because I really enjoyed reading this book. A bittersweet story of illness, teenage angst and a great love story. I loved the strength of Jem and Willa and how they each coped in their own way with loss, Jem in the person he used to be before he got sick and Willa with the loss of her sister to cancer. Both are outcasts so to speak as they are different than the normal teen but I think that this adds to their character. Other characters include Jems parents and siblings, Willa's brother and their friends at school.The author told this story in a wonderful compassionate way. This story I think also gives the reader a sense of how devasting cancer can be, not only on the person stricken with it but on those people who are family, caregivers and the people left behind after a death. This is a story that is for the older teen as there are sexual situations but a thoroughly enjoyable book.
I received this ebook for review and was not monetarily compensated for my review.
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