Author: Janet Ruth Young
Genre/Age: Contemporary fiction, Young adult
Publication: July 26, 2011 (anticipated)
Source: For review, Teen Book Scene
Genre/Age: Contemporary fiction, Young adult
Publication: July 26, 2011 (anticipated)
Source: For review, Teen Book Scene
Summary: Dani has strange, disturbing thoughts and images in her head that she can't control. When she has visions of killing Alex, the five year old she babysits, her life turns upside down. She fears she will truly hurt him, even though she loves him, and tries to quit her job to protect him. When his mother refuses to let her go, Dani reveals her visions to her. His mom immediately notifies the police, and the information gets leaked to the media. Now, "Dani Death" is threatened and bullied on a daily basis, even having rocks thrown through her window. She decides to run away from home, and now a violent and malicious group of "child protectors" is after her, searching high and low to find her. Dani just wants to know what's wrong with her, but can she escape and find out?
My Thoughts: I loved the premise of this book and eagerly awaited my chance to read it. It sounded deliciously creepy, something I love. I did enjoy the story, but was thrown off quite a bit by the writing style. It was written in third person present tense (I think that's what it would be called), and this was incredibly awkward to me. An example of this writing style would be something like, "Nancy walks down the street and sees her ex-boyfriend. She feels embarrassed and goes the other way." This just does not flow with me at all, so I felt distracted the whole time I was reading. I felt that this really detracted from the story.
As far as the actual story line though, it was quite intriguing, if a bit over the top. The reactions to Dani's visions were crazy, especially the child protector group who basically wanted to kill her. I can see that her visions were in fact disturbing, but she was innocent. She didn't hurt anybody, and didn't intend to. I can't see a community reacting the way hers did in real life, but maybe there are some crazy enough people? I'd like to believe that people would be more understanding of mental illness in a case of innocence, but who knows. If she had acted on her visions, that would have been one thing, but this was something entirely different. The big question of this story is: do bad thoughts make someone a bad person? Or do only bad actions make someone a bad person? This idea is SO thought-provoking to me, and I still don't have an answer.
So, all in all, an interesting and very unique story, with an even better underlying question. I would have enjoyed it better if it had been written in a different style, but it's still worth the read! Very controversial!
My Rating: 3.5/5
Great review! One of the things I noticed though, about the community reaction was that, especially in the beginning, they don't know Dani is mentally ill. All they hear is that she had thoughts of stabbing that little boy. So ya, I can see where their reaction came from. The mom didn't handle it well, the media got out of control, and it spread like crazy because of what certain people were saying.
ReplyDeleteIt was such a thought provoking read! My review goes up this week and I'm still completely conflicted about what to say! Awesome review though!
I might have a problem with the 3rd person point of view, I find that they don't flow for me either. :( Bummer! I'm still gonna give it a go, the story I hope will help me get through it.
ReplyDeletePlus it got a 3.5 rating from you, and we have similar taste in books.
Have a great Holiday weekend, Steph!
That sounds interesting, a little creepy. You find some good ones!
ReplyDeleteThird person present tense is hard to get used to. That's how screenplays are written and it always throws me switching back and forth between novels and screenplays.
ReplyDelete