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Desperate Measures by Laura Summers
The Blurb On The Back:
Vicky and Rhianna are twins but they couldn’t be more different. For their fourteenth birthday, Vicky wants a card from the hottest boy in school. Rhianna, brain-damaged at birth, wants a furby. Instead, they get a nasty shock. Their foster parents can’t cope and it looks as if Vicky and Rhianna and their youngest brother Jamie will have to be split up.
How can they stay together?
Desperate times call for desperate measures ...
Laura Summers’ debut novel tells the story of 14 year old twins Vicky and Rhianna who, with their younger brother, Jamie, have been living in foster care since the death of their mother sent their father into a downward spiral, culminating in his imprisonment for theft. Although Vicky is a typical teenager who fancies boys and hangs out with her friends, Rhianna was brain-damaged at birth and has serious learning disabilities. Unable to comprehend everything that goes on around her and preferring to play with her dolls, she relies on Vicky to protect her from both kids who want to bully her and the truth about her father. Jamie meanwhile has behavioural problems of his own, most notably a tendency to get into fights.
Tensions come to a head when their current foster parents, Paul and Sarah announce that they are expecting a baby and complications with the pregnancy mean that the three have to be rehoused. Unfortunately, due to the short notice, their social worker can’t find another foster parent able to cope with all three. Unwilling to be split up, they form their own plan – a desperate plan – one that involves them finding their own home and determining their own future.
Nominated for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Award, it’s interesting to read a book that has a brain-damaged character front and centre and Summers does well at giving Rhianna a convincing voice and attitude to the world. It’s a shame therefore that this is such a simplistic book in other ways - the smug and uncaring social workers being a particular stereotype that I could have done without, but Vicky and Jamie also seeming to run a checklist of troubled kids.
The run-away story never really rings true – not least the notion that they could make it so far without being spotted sooner or indeed that so many adults would be prepared to help them. The book also opts for a happy ending that definitely doesn’t ring true given the family circumstances.
The story does move along at a good pace and it wins points for the subject matter if not the execution. It’s a worthy book – whether it’s got enough for teens to want to read it is something I’m not personally convinced by, although it might do better with 9-12 year olds.
The Verdict:
Nominated for the Watersone’s Children’s Book Award, Laura Summer wins credit for writing a book that has a brain-damaged character in a central role and for writing from their perspective. However it is a simplistic story with very black and white characters and the fact that it doesn’t seem to tie in with real life dealings with, e.g. social workers, may well put the target teen audience off (although I would recommend it to readers age 9+).
Thanks to Piccadilly Press for the free copy of this book.
”‘Jamie and me have run away,’ said Rhianna, ‘and now you can too, Vicky.’
I took her hand in mine. It was freezing.
When we first started school, they thought Rhianna could manage without any help. But every morning, Mum would whisper to me, ‘Keep an eye on your sister, Vicky.’
So I did. I looked out for her. Kept the bad kids away. Protected her from danger. And now Mum was dead. I would always have to look out for her.
For ever and ever, amen.”
Vicky and Rhianna are twins but they couldn’t be more different. For their fourteenth birthday, Vicky wants a card from the hottest boy in school. Rhianna, brain-damaged at birth, wants a furby. Instead, they get a nasty shock. Their foster parents can’t cope and it looks as if Vicky and Rhianna and their youngest brother Jamie will have to be split up.
How can they stay together?
Desperate times call for desperate measures ...
Laura Summers’ debut novel tells the story of 14 year old twins Vicky and Rhianna who, with their younger brother, Jamie, have been living in foster care since the death of their mother sent their father into a downward spiral, culminating in his imprisonment for theft. Although Vicky is a typical teenager who fancies boys and hangs out with her friends, Rhianna was brain-damaged at birth and has serious learning disabilities. Unable to comprehend everything that goes on around her and preferring to play with her dolls, she relies on Vicky to protect her from both kids who want to bully her and the truth about her father. Jamie meanwhile has behavioural problems of his own, most notably a tendency to get into fights.
Tensions come to a head when their current foster parents, Paul and Sarah announce that they are expecting a baby and complications with the pregnancy mean that the three have to be rehoused. Unfortunately, due to the short notice, their social worker can’t find another foster parent able to cope with all three. Unwilling to be split up, they form their own plan – a desperate plan – one that involves them finding their own home and determining their own future.
Nominated for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Award, it’s interesting to read a book that has a brain-damaged character front and centre and Summers does well at giving Rhianna a convincing voice and attitude to the world. It’s a shame therefore that this is such a simplistic book in other ways - the smug and uncaring social workers being a particular stereotype that I could have done without, but Vicky and Jamie also seeming to run a checklist of troubled kids.
The run-away story never really rings true – not least the notion that they could make it so far without being spotted sooner or indeed that so many adults would be prepared to help them. The book also opts for a happy ending that definitely doesn’t ring true given the family circumstances.
The story does move along at a good pace and it wins points for the subject matter if not the execution. It’s a worthy book – whether it’s got enough for teens to want to read it is something I’m not personally convinced by, although it might do better with 9-12 year olds.
The Verdict:
Nominated for the Watersone’s Children’s Book Award, Laura Summer wins credit for writing a book that has a brain-damaged character in a central role and for writing from their perspective. However it is a simplistic story with very black and white characters and the fact that it doesn’t seem to tie in with real life dealings with, e.g. social workers, may well put the target teen audience off (although I would recommend it to readers age 9+).
Thanks to Piccadilly Press for the free copy of this book.