Would You

Would you rather know what's going to happen? Or not know? Sixteen-year-old Natalie and her teenage friends love whiling away summer hours eating ice cream and asking hypothetical questions. But when Nat's sister is hit by a car and suffers an irreversible brain injury, tough questions pertaining to life and death are no longer theoretical. Telling the story primarily in the first person, Renée Raudman portrays the pre-accident Nat with a youthful-sounding voice full of exuberance, innocence, humor, and teenage angst. Gradually, a somber tone takes over this heartbreaking story. Through Raudman's restrained narration, Nat evolves into a lovable character who exemplifies the maturity, dignity and grace of a young woman now wise beyond her years. A.R.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Starred review from June 2, 2008
The opening chapters give little hint of the intensity of Jocelyn's (How It Happened in Peach Hill
) exquisitely honed novel. Soon-to-be-high school junior Natalie and her friends like to play “Would you...”—a game exemplified by the book's first lines: “Would you rather know what's going to happen? Or not know?” Abruptly everything changes: Natalie's older sister, Claire, is struck by a car and rendered comatose. Jocelyn maintains a measured pace as the next few days unfold: Natalie watches her mother numb herself with tranquilizers, her father grow angry and look for someone to blame. Although the plot line sounds like that of a standard weeper, the author resists the urge to magnify emotions. Natalie reacts honestly, neither beautifully nor nobly—she is initially repulsed when a nurse asks her to massage Claire's grossly swollen feet; she lashes out at a boy who already (and needlessly) feels guilty. The light touch with which Jocelyn handles her difficult material is best seen when Claire is declared brain-dead and taken off life support: the humanity in the author's treatment affords the reader a sense both of grief and of peace. Ages 14–up.