Losing a parent is hard, but I would imagine that losing two parents is even harder, especially when your living with a secret so deep and so dark that it causes hell to breathe in your every action, word and motive. The book was a moving novel that actually displayed something that felt very real and natural. Many children go through the situation of being placed into the care of social services, being fostered over and over again and yet being seen as a difficult and devestated child. But the way that the story is told here, really opens up your eyes to what that child may go through. I think we all have the ability to place guilt upon our shoulders for things that were perhaps an accident and were never meant to happen. But what happens to that guilt when the accident is so severe, so tragic and deathly that you have to live it, always knowing what happened.
The way the book is written is emotionally tugging and pulling. It really makes you feel the characters sadness and it shows a side of him that is vulnerable and just needs to be loved, protected and cared for. I could feel my sense of abandonment just from his words, and when I tried to imagine a life without my parents there, I wanted to burst into tears because I wanted to know what I had done wrong. The book was perhaps a little too cliche in that it showed a child in foster care often tends to be the problem child. The child who is bullied, who needs to see a psychiatrist. And yet at the same, I think that this is probably very likely and very true for many of those children because of the tragic times that have occured.
Of course there is this huge sense of mystery within the novel especially when it comes down to the whole aspect of his dad. Surely if his dad had pushed his mum of the balcony then he would have been held within the states laws behind bars. No one is likely to get away that. But what adds to the mysterious sense is the cause of self harm. Yes a lot of troubled children self harm because they need to find a release of emotions. This is something that I myself can relate and connect to. But there is usually an underlying reason of guilt there as well, where they want to punsih themselves because they are sure that they have done something wrong. I did like the way the story unfolded and the way that it was not predictable. It kept a hold of the reader and really pulled them into the words.
The ending of the novel however severely annoyed me because it seemed to end so suddenly at such an abrupt place that you have no way of knowing what happened after. I wonder if this is because they didnt want to portray a false illusion that after all that had occured, that everything would just be a big old happy ending. Or perhaps they didnt want to display the truth incase this was likely to upset readers. But for me the ending just did not feel like an ending and so of course your left there wondering what to make of the book and what to think of it. I did enjoy it though and did find myself unable to put it down because of its realistic traits. I think that its just something that perhaps all readers will be able to connect to in their own individual ways.
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