≡ Libro Gratis The Year of The Rat Clare Furniss 9781471120275 Books

The Year of The Rat Clare Furniss 9781471120275 Books

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The Year of The Rat Clare Furniss 9781471120275 Books

Lovely story covering loss and grief in a teenage girl. Well done Clare.


Tags : The Year of The Rat [Clare Furniss] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Shortlisted for the Branford Boase prize and longlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, this sensitive and beautifully written novel will stay with you. I always thought you'd know,Clare Furniss,The Year of The Rat,Simon & Schuster Childrens Books,1471120279,Children's Teenage fiction: General fiction,General fiction (Children's Teenage),Juvenile Fiction General,Young Adult Fiction

The Year of The Rat Clare Furniss 9781471120275 Books Reviews

Although The Year of the Rat is not the kind of book that would normally make it onto my reading menu, it turned out to be a relaxing, often-humorous book with lots of depth. When Pearl's mother dies, leaving a newborn baby behind, Pearl is devastated. She decides to hate her sister, Rose, aka The Rat, as well as her step-father, and blame both of them for her mother's death. The only thing that gets her through that first year after her mother's death seems to be her mother's ghost.

A tale of loss, jealousy and self-discovery, The Year of the Rat is a comfortably paced, medium length read. The focus of this book is Pearl's journey through grief and severe hatred to finding herself, and ultimately, healing.

Although Pearl's character is well crafted and fleshed out, I couldn't really identify with her. I understood her grief as well as her natural feelings of blame towards her sister and even her step-father. However, I couldn't understand how she could disintegrate to the degree where she dragged her stepdad as well as her grandmother down with her, and alienated her best friend into the bargain.

Fortunately she has Finn and his grandmother who seem to be able to look past her problems and give her the support and friendship she needs. Finn's character isn't very pronounced in this book, yet, he seems to be the kind of quiet, supportive person a troubled girl like Pearl might need.

Filled with touches of typically British humor, The Year of the Rat is a pleasant, relaxing read with a couple of life lessons and a wealth of depth. (Ellen Fritz)
How do I even talk about this book? How about leave me alone to cry. (That could be it's alternate title, actually.) You know those books that kind of stab your heart and then watch you shatter...and wait until the last 20-pages to fix you? This little beauty is one of those.

I admit, though, the title threw me. There is nothing Chinese about this book. Not even Chinese food. Which is a pity. The title is perfectly clear once you get reading, but it does feel misleading to me.

It is also extremely depressing. It's about grief! Trust me when I say, there are books about crying and then there are books that make you cry and then there's just crying. I AM CRYING, OKAY? So much pain. I've read a lot of books that deal with the topic of grief. Pearl loses her mother, really unexpectedly, and the book is about her journey through grief. No bandaids. No cuddles to stop the pain. There is just pain pain pain, and it's realistic. It felt so real and so heartbreaking. I'm absolutely drained, because I just experienced it all with Pearl.

That's good writing, okay? Let's not mince words this book is excellently written. See? I'm using "excellently" because this book is also British. Very Brisith. (Which I love, because it smells a little bit like home. Except for all the tea drinking.) Are you in pain? Tea. Are you sad? Tea. Are you a stranger who knocked on my front door? Tea.

Pearl is a really icy character. She had the tendency to be annoying, but I was too busy being in her shoes and feeling her pain to be ticked off. She's quite cruel, really, in her pain. And seeing her thaw from the frost seems like it's never goooing to haaaappen. Smite me. I've never had a close family member or friend die, so I can't possibly know what it's like -- BUT, reading this? It really understood Pearl. I understood her cruelty. I understood her hate. And then this quote

"He said maybe sometimes, when people lose someone they love, it's like they die too. It's like perhaps that's the only way they can stay close to the person who's gone. They stop living."

I'm done. Grab a mop for my tears, okay?

Despite being about dead people, this book is surprisingly funny. The humour is dry and snarky, bit of gallows humour here and there. Fabulous.

There's also a lot of family relationships in here, which, as you might now, I adore. Smushy romance is well and good, but there are other kinds of relationships and I get so excited when YA explores them! While there's a bit of a Thing happening between the neighbour's grandson, Finn, and Pearl, the book never relaly "goes there". This book is about Pearl and her family her grandma, her step-dead, her dead mother, and the little baby who her mother died having. Family isn't loving and happiness. It's support when you're drowning. I love that.

You have to read this. I want you to feel the pain that I am feeling, basically. It's sad and funny (which is incredibly hard to pull off). But, spoiler there is no Chinese food. (I'm still confused as to why there's no Chinese food.)
I liked this story well enough and it was interesting to see what loss and grief can do to a person. Although not perfect, the story itself was well developed and I definitely appreciated that there almost wasn't any romance included in the plot. The Year Of The Rat is a mostly family focused and character driven story where we follow the main character Pearl as she tries to deal with the fact that her mother died giving birth to her little sister. While I can't say I was able to connect to the main character, there is no doubt some very powerful emotions are described; it's a story that will make you think. If you are looking for something easy and fluffy, you are definitely looking at the wrong story, because you will find some very difficult moments in this read.
Lovely story covering loss and grief in a teenage girl. Well done Clare.