2008-09-05 Most Painful Read of My Life!

I hate this book. And i mean seriously hate it. The story of 3 children setting off one day and only two of them returning because the third had been murdered - it doesn't take a genius to work out Anne Cassidy got her inspiration from the case of Jamie Bulger, and that's why this book angered me so much because Cassidy is trying to excuse what Jennifer Jones did, murdering her best friend - trying to make us sympathise with her character and understand it wasn't entirely her fault. Well, guess what - it was.

Alice Tully / Jennifer Jones is made as a character the reader is meant to sympathise with - Anne Cassidy not so subtly pulls all the strings to make us feel sorry of poor Alice - how she can't tell her boyfriend her true identity, how the press are threatening to reveal her true identity, how she doesn't like to stand out in a crowd incase anyone recognises her - same with her previous identify of Jennifer - yes she murdered her friend but it's OK, Michele was being rude, and Jennifer was all upset because she found out her mum took dirty photos. Let's just ignore the fact that she intentionally, knowing full well what she is doing, took up a bat and hit her best friend around the head with it, knowing it could kill her, then attempted to bury her body instead of phoning for the ambulance. But she was only 10 years old - a kid! Well, what kid does that, I ask you?

I've heard so many people describe this book as clever and meaningful - but it isn't. Cassidy creates a character who murdered her best friend and tries to make us sympathise with her. Well, the use of such blatant techniques are not going to work on me. There's no denying what she did - no excusing it in my opinion, and so, for me at least, this book is frustrating, because I refuse to be swept along with Cassidy's blatant manipulation. But, I gave this review 2 stars rather than 1 for a reason - and that was almost completely due to the last few chapters. Alice's final realisation of who her mother is - how she can't even recognise her daughter, Alice and Rosie's separation, and the final chilling line, they were all written very well, with a style and intelligence that the rest of the book lacks. It's a shame the rest of the novel wasn't written the same.

I found this book almost impossible to finish - and really would not recommend it to anyone else. Want an intelligent children's book? Try Holes, or Jake's Tower. Leave this garbage alone.