Speak
August 11, 2009
384 Pages
Paperback
Paperback
Amazon
Okay, I read the hardcover, but since the paperback comes out today, I figured I'd just schedule this to post today and feature the paperback's details-besides, isn't that cover gorgeous?
Okay, I read the hardcover, but since the paperback comes out today, I figured I'd just schedule this to post today and feature the paperback's details-besides, isn't that cover gorgeous?Inspired by the ballad "Scarborough Fair," Impossible is the story of Lucy who has lived her whole life raised by foster parents and knowing that the crazy woman pushing a shopping cart (sometimes) around town is her mother.
It's not until she's seventeen, though, that she connects her mother with the letter six-year-old Lucy found hidden away in her room. The letter that will tell her more than she possibly ever wanted to know about the women in her family, her own fate, what really happened to her mother, and what she must do to change her destiny. (I'm being vague again but I didn't want to paste in the Amazon summary because I thought it told a lot of the story right off the bat...maybe I'm just being picky.)
While this wasn't this amazing character driven story (Zach was Lucy's best friend and the main male character but I didn't really feel the chemistry there; they didn't not work together, but if a new male character had been introduced my heart wouldn't have broken for them), it was very good. The plot relied a good bit on folklore and mythology and that was done extremely well and the way each piece built on the previous ones and everything eventually added up all worked very well for me. It all made for a great mystery.
So, while it might be true that if you took the mystery out and wrote a general fiction or teen romance with the same characters it wouldn't work, that doesn't matter because this wasn't general fic or romance. I did, though, find myself consistently wondering just what a certain element of the 'mystery' was going to mean, how something was going to play out or just how they were going to solve some problem. It was a very creative book and very well researched and I truly enjoyed it-I'm going to have to look for more of Nancy Werlin's books.
 | ~*~ coming soon ~*~ |
9/10 (for the lack of 'chemistry' between the two main characters)
*now that I'm thinking about it, if you liked The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane you might like this book--and vice-versa, too.
I dug this book too.
ReplyDeleteI love the new cover.
I won this book at a TeenReads giveaway. I'm really interested to read the book. And I'm really glad you didn't post any spoilers to the story. TeenReads has this entire summary written out and it totally ruined the book for me. :(
ReplyDeleteI'm still excited to read it though, because the plot sounds facinating. I just wished I hadn't summary. But thanks for this great review! I'm excited to see that you're interested in her other books also. This will be the first book of hers that I'll read.
Limerick :]
@Juju
ReplyDeleteI really like the way the hardcover and paperback covers are similar yet so different at the same time. I love the color on this one, too
@Limerick
I'm sorry they gave so much away but yay you for winning a copy! I really hope you enjoy reading it :D I have one of her books on CD from the library now and bought another so there should be some reviews someday