Release Date: September 6, 2016
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 288
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Contemporary
*I received this book as a NetGalley ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. All opinions are my own. Thanks NetGalley!*
Summary
The powerful story of two teenagers finding friendship, comfort, and first love in the days following 9/11 as their fractured city tries to put itself back together.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, sixteen-year-old Kyle Donohue watches the first twin tower come down from the window of Stuyvesant High School. Moments later, terrified and fleeing home to safety across the Brooklyn Bridge, he stumbles across a girl perched in the shadows. She is covered in ash and wearing a pair of costume wings. With his mother and sister in California and unable to reach his father, a New York City detective likely on his way to the disaster, Kyle makes the split-second decision to bring the girl home. What follows is their story, told in alternating points of view, as Kyle tries to unravel the mystery of the girl so he can return her to her family. But what if the girl has forgotten everything, even her own name? And what if the more Kyle gets to know her, the less he wants her to go home? The Memory of Things tells a stunning story of friendship and first love and of carrying on with our day-to-day living in the midst of world-changing tragedy and pain--it tells a story of hope.
The Rundown
I really enjoyed this book! I've been in a bit of a reading rut lately but this moving story fit perfectly to pull me out of it.
If you're of a certain age I'm sure you vividly remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on the morning of September 11, 2001. I kind of giggled and got the "I'm getting old!" mentality when I saw that this book was tagged in the historical fiction genre. When I think historical fiction my mind goes to WWII, the Roaring Twenties, The American Civil War...not something that happened when I was fourteen.
As a teen librarian I get my mind blown a little more when I think "Whoa. Most teens I'll be book talking this to were either babies or not even born yet on 9/11." They'll read this book and hopefully appreciate the story and setting in the same way I would read a story about Pearl Harbor and the events that followed: you can appreciate the impact, but you won't feel, not really.
Okay now on to the review!!
Kyle was in class at his high school, just blocks from the World Trade Center, on that Tuesday morning. When his school was evacuated, he makes his way with so many others out of the city and across the bridge to his home in Brooklyn. On the bridge he comes across a girl covered in ash, wearing a pair of costume wings, and no memory of what happened, who she is, or how she got there.
Fearing for the girl and overcome with the urge to help her, Kyle takes her home with him. He's unable to reach his dad, an NYPD officer likely already responding at Ground Zero. His mom and younger sister are stuck in California after their flight was cancelled. That leaves Kyle to take care of his uncle, now living with Kyle's family after being disabled in a horrific motorcycle accident, and the mystery bird girl while watching his city struggle to find its way out of a devastating tragedy.
What unfolds over the next few days is such a beautiful coming-of-age story of first love and friendship and family coming together. It's teenagers still heading to Nathan's on Coney Island and holding hands. It's kissing and playing music. It's telling those closest to you how much you love them. It's everything from lives to city skylines forever changed, yet life going on. It's hope and unity. It's loving yourself before you can love another.
All of this in the face of one of the darkest days in American history. Wow.
Kyle was such a great narrator and I really enjoyed seeing the events of 9/11 through his eyes. He felt like a friend from the very beginning, and it's rare I feel that kind of a connection to a character.
The only thing that just wasn't my cup of tea, or maybe it just took some getting used to, was the way the alternating view points were. Though most of the story is told through Kyle, when we're with our mystery girl her thoughts come through as a kind of broken poetry. It made sense and by the end I felt helped me get a sense for her amnesia, but it felt super choppy at the start.
I feel like this will easily make my Top 10 YA Books of 2016 list!!
Rating: 4.5 Stars. Get this book in your life ASAP!
No comments:
Post a Comment