Review: Great
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 13, 2013
I'm not invisible. I have desires. I want to be touched and held and told that I'm worth something. I am not pitiful. I am better than you can imagine. I have talents. I have successes and failures. I love my life. I sometimes feel dissatisfied with the world. I come from a place of love, not death. I am special. I matter. I can be the most interesting person in the room. I can blend in and that's okay. I'm somebody. I'm a nobody. I feel deeply and I want to be allowed to show it. I don't want to be judged. I can be judgmental. When you give me platitudes and you belittle my feelings. I'm brave. I'm scared. I'm wandering. I have plans. I will be the best me I can be. I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am; I am who I think you think I am, so think well of me, please.First let me say before anyone goes out and buys Wake that you please be very patient with this one. It's a very, very long book. But it's an absolutely beautiful read.Jem is a eighteen year old going through cancer remission. Jem got cancer a week after he moved to a new town and school. Jem has no friends and everyone is standoffish towards him because he is the cancer boy afraid he is going to drop at any moment. Jem is tried, and not the perfect, handsome, out going kid he once was. It's an every day struggle with the pain plus to make it to school and seat there lonely. Besides his sweet little sister Elise is there for him. I adored his sister and all the milk shakes that she makes him and her Harry Potter obsessions."You worry so much for such a young man," she says. You always were like that; and old soul, I guess."Then he meets Willa his Social Studies partner. Willa also a back ground with dealing with cancer. Her sister died of cancer. She is an angry, flat out blunt, depressed girl. But Willa has her own secrets. Willa is struggling with not going back to her dark past."You're a ginger? "Kirk" "Oh you poor soulless bastard."The bickering back and forth between Jem and Willa is hilarious. Willa is not scared to talk or touch Jem, she treats him like an actual person. I love how Willa takes great care of Jem, she makes him wonderful and sounds delicious soups that he can eat. Willa treats Jem too good.You can't love someone if you don't really know them. And if you can't love them at their darkest moments...you just can't love them, period.It's heart wrenching. I loved the different POV's that I got, I love how at that moment of time I get the feelings from other family members. Jem has a amazing family they are all full of heart.Even though this book is long as hell I am glad I read it, but you get to see the day in and day out of what all these characters go through. It makes it worth it so much more.Great job Abria Mattina