
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands
A Novel
کتاب های مرتبط
- اطلاعات
- نقد و بررسی
- دیدگاه کاربران
نقد و بررسی

Grace Blewer, the author's daughter, gives a heartfelt portrayal of Vermont teenager Emily Shepard. The local nuclear plant has had a meltdown, and Emily's father, an alcoholic who worked there, may have been responsible. With both of her parents dead, Emily takes off on her own, finding herself in a dystopian world. Blewer captures all of Emily's complexity--her emotional troubles, her ferocious determination to protect a homeless boy she stumbles across, and her longing for her beloved dog. While on the run, Emily creates a new identity--inspired by her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson. There's no doubt that listeners will know this book shines in the audio format when they hear Blewer singing a Dickinson poem to a popular tune. M.N.T. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

May 12, 2014
Bohjalian’s (The Light in the Ruins) impressive 16th novel charts the life of a teenage girl undone after a nuclear disaster. Already troubled, rebellious Emily Shepard becomes orphaned and homeless after the meltdown of Reddington’s nuclear power plant in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Wandering aimlessly, she finds refuge in a local shelter with Cameron, a nine-year-old boy she soon finds herself protecting. Emily is banished once she’s pegged as the daughter of heavy-drinking parents both employed (and held responsible by surviving townsfolk) at the power plant where the meltdown occurred. Frequent flashbacks to her days at school and the youth shelter show her surrounded by influential miscreants, self-abusing “cutters,” and drug takers like friends Andrea and Camille. Stealing and shoplifting through neighboring towns in order to survive the frigid New England winter becomes an often harrowing ordeal for Emily and Cameron as she attempts to figure out her next move. Through her first-person narration, readers become intimately familiar with Emily (and Cameron), as she grapples with the frustrating life of a misunderstood homeless youth on the run. Emily continually surprises herself with her newfound maternal instincts for Cameron and how difficult it is to survive life on the streets. Her admiration for kindred spirit Emily Dickinson serves to humanize her plight, as does an epiphany in the book’s bittersweet conclusion.
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