Hello? by Liza M. Wiemer
Published by: Spencer Hill Contemporary
Genre: Young Adult Realistic Fiction
Release date: November 10th 2015
Purchase: Amazon / B&N / Indigo
One HELLO? can change a life. One HELLO? can save a life.
Tricia: A girl struggling to find her way after her beloved grandma's death.
Emerson: A guy who lives his life to fulfill promises, real and hypothetical.
Angie: A girl with secrets she can only express through poetry.
Brenda: An actress and screenplay writer afraid to confront her past.
Brian: A potter who sets aside his life for Tricia, to the detriment of both.
Linked and transformed by one phone call, Hello? weaves together these five Wisconsin teens' stories into a compelling narrative of friendship and family, loss and love, heartbreak and healing, serendipity, and ultimately hope.
Told from all five viewpoints: narration (Tricia), narration (Emerson), free verse poetry (Angie), screenplay format (Brenda), narration and drawings (Brian).
MY REVIEW:
Storyline of Hello? simply cannot be summed up in couple of sentences or paragraphs. So instead of telling you about plot of this book, I’m going to give you four reasons why you should be reading this book right now:
#1 Not A Single Reader Will Stay Untouched
Hello? Is deeply moving and emotional story that will grip your heart with its moments of potent intensity. This isn’t fluffy or light story. But if you want to experience all the feels from grief, rage, fear, guilt, shame and desperation to love, hopefulness, forgiveness, kindness and courage to deal with stuff; Hello? is the book for you.
#2 Five Is More Than One
Five life-stories, five perspectives to experience this story from. I have always loved movies that feature multiple separate stories, only to be coincidentally connected by some sort of life-changing event. This is my first book which follows similar pattern and I truly enjoyed it.
#3 Unique Narrating
Five narrators, five different voices. Literally. While Tricia’s and Emerson’s chapters are in prose (Emerson also uses lists and plenty of inner monologue), Angie’s were in free verse. Than there were Brenda’s screenplay chapters and Brian’s drawings mixed with prose. All these unique narrations gave Hello? a personal vibe and helped me to easily distinguish between individual voices of characters. I loved it.
#4 Realistic Fiction At Its Best
Teenagers in this novels deal with a lot. Heaviness of responsibility, finding right place in the world, PTSD, death of loved one, jealousy, broken hearts, relationship struggles, bullying, self-consciousness...List goes on and on. Author didn’t sugarcoat anything and showed us real imperfect people with human’s struggles and believable problems. In Hello?, you won’t find over-the-top drama or flawless characters. This gem of a book is perfect example of YA realistic fiction and I believe that it holds power to affect readers and help people to find motivation for dealing with their own real-life problems.
DO YOU ENJOY MULTIPLE POVs IN BOOKS?
DO YOU LIKE TO READ REALISTIC FICTION?
DO YOU LIKE TO READ REALISTIC FICTION?
