Flux
March 1, 2009
240 Pages
Paperback
Amazon
This book has possibly the most appropriate cover of any of the books I've read lately. It's a simple image, but could really apply to any of the three main characters (and the title).Fifteen-year-old twins Nadio and Noelle and Noelle's best friend Keeley have always been 'three' for as long as they can remember. Nadio, Noelle and their mother live in the gatehoues of Keeley and her parent's house (they're professor's and their mother works at the college bookstore). The three have grown up together, but now for the first time, they've spent the summer apart.
Keeley joins her parents in Oxford, England for the entire summer while Noelle and Nadio stay home, Noelle taking a job at the local ice cream stand.
Things change, new friends are made, new relationships started....and new secrets kept.
When the three finally come back together things are very, very different and they're different. (The Amazon summaries have a lot more information in them but they also give a lot more of the story--some that happens more than half way through--so that's why I'm not including it.)
It's the story of the three of them learning how to be who they are now and how to be that together and not just who they have always been when they were together every second of every day. Then, there are their secrets and the potentially dark roads they can lead the three down.
It's a true, harsh look at teenage life and what happens when we make choices we don't expect we'll ever make...that those that know us best don't expect we'll ever make.
This Is What I Want to Tell You is the story of three best friends seeing if, after one fateful summer and it's events, if they can still be best friends...I think to really say any more than that would take away from potential enjoyment of this fantastic story. It doesn't downplay any of the nasty side effects and the teenagers don't act the way sdults think teenagers act about sex and drugs and school and life but, I think, the way teens actually do---or in a believeable way.
It's a very enjoyable book and I do hope that Heather Duffy Stone writes another of its calibar.
 | ~*~ coming soon ~*~ |
10/10 because I really can't find anything to mark it down for
I need to start following my YA as my daughter grows older. Great review.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great read! I've heard lots of positive things about it and enjoyed your review... I'll definitely look for it.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate how spoiler-conscious you are in your reviews, too! :) Just wanted to let you know how awesome that is. I really, really hate when book descriptions give away so much of the plot before I've even cracked the spine. It's so disappointing! I live for the unexpected discoveries in plots! :)
@Jennifer Hudson Taylor
ReplyDeleteThank you :) There's a sentence in the aknowledgements where the author says that her sister-in-law told her, "I don't know how you do it, but you write the things I felt yet didn't know how to express when I was a teenager." I didn't include that in my review but I really, really thought about it...
I think it's very true of this book, it doesn't Disney-fy the teenagers but it doesn't make them the out there, drunk, druggies that some books seem to want to. The characters ring very true--and I think that's what makes it so enjoyable.
@writermeg
Thank you!! I really, really abhor spoilers and sometimes I'll be reading a book and get to page 75 or 100 or even 200 and realise I'm just getting to something mentioned on the back of the book or Amazon synopsis.
I worry sometimes that I'm being too vague in some of my summaries but...I guess my blog can be the place for spoiler free reviews :)
It's really, really nice to hear that someone appreciates my attention to that. Thanks for commenting.