AT RISK

Rating:
Summary: Close to home and close to my heart
Review: I first picked up a dog-eared copy of "At Risk" when I was ten years old. Maybe a little young to be reading an adult novel, but it never stopped me in the past. I've been a voracious reader my whole life but I am eternally grateful I chose "At Risk" to read that day. It is the one book that is very, very special to me. Probably because it is the first book that stayed in my system for months afterward, made me cry for a family I didn't even know. This book tells of a young girl, Amanda Farrell, who is diagnosed with AIDS, and how it affects her family and the quaint New England town they reside in. Keep in mind that information on AIDS was not as conclusive as it is now, there were many misconceptions about the disease. My cousin died of AIDS in the late eighties around the time this book was written. Maybe that's what drew me to it

The characters are intricately written, I found myself growing to care for everyone, from Polly to Amanda to Laurel. The character who stood out the most to me was the youngest, Amanda's little brother Charlie. Charlie is somewhat of a loner, a precocious, science-obsessed 8-year-old who has a strong, typical-sibling bond with Amanda. The reason Charlie stood out to me was his pain and grief and confusion was written subtly, to the point where it seemed like Charlie was fading into the background, literally. His parents are so busy caring for Amanda they don't realize Charlie is hurting and being isolated by people in school who are afraid of contracting the illness.

I commend Alice Hoffman on delicately touching the issue of a controversial illness in the 80s, drawing up an array of characters so real I felt myself in pain for them, and writing this book that will always be considered the first book I ever really loved.

Rating:
Summary: Close to home and close to my heart
Review: I first picked up a dog-eared copy of "At Risk" when I was ten years old. Maybe a little young to be reading an adult novel, but it never stopped me in the past. I've been a voracious reader my whole life but I am eternally grateful I chose "At Risk" to read that day. It is the one book that is very, very special to me. Probably because it is the first book that stayed in my system for months afterward, made me cry for a family I didn't even know. This book tells of a young girl, Amanda Farrell, who is diagnosed with AIDS, and how it affects her family and the quaint New England town they reside in. Keep in mind that information on AIDS was not as conclusive as it is now, there were many misconceptions about the disease. My cousin died of AIDS in the late eighties around the time this book was written. Maybe that's what drew me to it

The characters are intricately written, I found myself growing to care for everyone, from Polly to Amanda to Laurel. The character who stood out the most to me was the youngest, Amanda's little brother Charlie. Charlie is somewhat of a loner, a precocious, science-obsessed 8-year-old who has a strong, typical-sibling bond with Amanda. The reason Charlie stood out to me was his pain and grief and confusion was written subtly, to the point where it seemed like Charlie was fading into the background, literally. His parents are so busy caring for Amanda they don't realize Charlie is hurting and being isolated by people in school who are afraid of contracting the illness.

I commend Alice Hoffman on delicately touching the issue of a controversial illness in the 80s, drawing up an array of characters so real I felt myself in pain for them, and writing this book that will always be considered the first book I ever really loved.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Not a Sob Story
Review: I had to pick two books to read for a lit class project and after reading one book i couldn't seem to find another one. After hours of searching book stores I found At Risk. It was the first book I picked up that day when I walked into [the store. I was looking for a book that wouldn't lull me to sleep and with this book I found it. At Risk combines just enough plot with human emotion to have you wanting to reach out and comfort the Farrell Family.
The Farrell's are a family with two kids, Charlie and Amanda. Charlie is 8 and loves science and Amanda is 11 and has a passion for gymnastics. Amanda gets sick and they soon find out that she has gotten AIDS from a transfution during an operation. The rest of the book shows us how they deal with what is happening to their daughter, granddaughter, sister, and friend. It's really a great book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book, Not a Sob Story
Review: I had to pick two books to read for a lit class project and after reading one book i couldn't seem to find another one. After hours of searching book stores I found At Risk. It was the first book I picked up that day when I walked into [the store. I was looking for a book that wouldn't lull me to sleep and with this book I found it. At Risk combines just enough plot with human emotion to have you wanting to reach out and comfort the Farrell Family.
The Farrell's are a family with two kids, Charlie and Amanda. Charlie is 8 and loves science and Amanda is 11 and has a passion for gymnastics. Amanda gets sick and they soon find out that she has gotten AIDS from a transfution during an operation. The rest of the book shows us how they deal with what is happening to their daughter, granddaughter, sister, and friend. It's really a great book to read.

Rating:
Summary: Hoffman's Best Effort!
Review: I have been an avid follower of Alice Hoffman for more than a decade. "At Risk" remains my favorite of her books. I loved most of the characters (that insensitive fool Betsy, the mother of her son's friend was for the birds). I loved the way AIDS was treated in a gentle, sensitive way without stigma being attached to the illness. I loved the way Charlie and his weirdly named friend Sevrin (why would anybody name their child Sevrin? that is cruel) were friends in spite of the stupidity of Sevrin's mother, Betsy. I actually cheered when Polly, the mother of Amanda and Charlie stood up to that fool Betsy and called her on her prejudice. I love the way she tried to hit that fool with logic concerning her daughter Amanda's illness. For everyone who has ever cared about somebody who was termainally ill, for everyone who cares about people in general (that's where Betsy gets off the train), this book is for us. A KEEPER!

Rating:
Summary: True to life
Review: I was assigned to read At Risk for English class. In the past when I've been assigned books, I've read it to get the assignment over with, but with this book I enjoyed every page. The book starts out giving this picture of a perfect suburban family living in a nice house in a small town. From the very beginning I felt as thought i knew the family. I think everyone has the attitude that "That could never happen to me." This book sends a powerful message that no one expects for bad things to happen to them. The familyhad this idealistic attitude about the perfect life they wanted. Amanda was determined to become an olympic gymnaist and a seemingly insignificant operation that happened when she was a little girl decided her entire future at that moment. The feelings everyone has a very real and the characters seem like actual people. You, as the reader feel the emotions the family does and it is like you are going through the situation with them. The real-to-life character change throughout because of everything that has happened. They are at first seperated by the tremendous tragady but they learn the only way they can get through the hard times is together. They grow together in love and realize that they need each other. Amanda has a conflict inside herself. She feels confused and helplessness. She is used to being independent and now she can't really do anything for herself. The reality of each at the different realtionships is wonderful. Amanda has her best friend Jessie, who is very supportive and sticks by when no one else does. For anyone who has ever had a best friend you know the feelings and emotions Jessie and Amanda exsperiance are real. Hoffman also explores the brother-sister relationship Charlie and Amanda have. They have the typical sibling rivalry but the unconditional love they have for each other in incrediable. The two of them probably never realized they actully loved each other until Amanda was diagnose with AIDS. Charlie then realizes her isn't only loosing a sister but a part of himself as well. The saying might be old and somewhat oever used, but it still remains true: you never know what you have until it is gone.

Rating:
Summary: What It Means To Be Human
Review: It's a hard one. It's even harder than picking my favourite food or heaven forbid, my favourite band. But when it comes to my favourite author...I have to say that Alice Hoffman just blows me away.

I have read many of Alice Hoffman's books and have become delightfully accustomed to being spoiled rotten by her beautiful prose and agile ability to articulate the most complex emotions of what it means to be human. Of her books that I have read to date, At Risk is the novel that has taken my heart and squeezed it the hardest.

In the eye of the storm that Hoffman whips up in this novel, is eleven year old Amanda Farrell who dreams of being the greatest gymnast that ever was, who finds her younger brother Charlie disgusting and a pain and who loves her best friend Jess more than her Madonna casette tapes. In the first chapter of At Risk, readers are invited into the Farrell's home, the marriage of Amanda and Charlie's parents Ivan and Polly, and the absolute horror of Amanda contracting HIV after a blood transfusion from her childhood went terribly wrong.

With a story like this, I'm sure there is much room for melodrama and contrived waffling saga-like desperation and soap-actor calamity. However, with Alice Hoffman, the reader is in safe hands. At Risk delivers the reality of how this situation affects a family, a town, a school and even complete strangers. Unlike in others where it has been neccessary to paint the picture with her words, Hoffman's prose in this novel is not excessive, her descriptions are minimal and neccessary. I am now on the hunt for a lamp with a beautiful pink shade. She deals with the characters so gently but realistically that I felt like I was sitting at the dinner table in silence with the rest of Amanda's family. I too was pushing food around my plate, not knowing how to swallow the abundant zucchini dishes made from the vegetables growing in Polly's garden, to get past the pit of sorrow in my stomach.

Big fat crocodile tears rolled down my cheeks as Amanda's 11 year old mentality accepts her disease and her fate. The way Alice Hoffman has woven this tale of simplicity and complexity is so commendable - if you have a few quiet hours and all you want is tale to wrap you up and give you a delicate nudge about what's really important into your life, I would recommend introducing yourself to Amanda. You won't ever regret knowing her.

Rating:
Summary: AIDS wears a child's face
Review: There is probably nothing on earth more cruel and inexplicable than the death of a child, especially when a child succumbs to a horribly cruel disease known as AIDS. "At Risk" is the story of Amanda Farrell, 11 years old, who has been carrying a killer virus inside of her for five years, ever since a routine appendectomy in the early 1980's went awry and she had to receive a blood transfusion. They didn't test blood for HIV back then (how far away it all seems now) and Amanda got a dose of contaminated blood that has been slowly, invisibly, but all too relentlessly killing her. She's looking forward to sixth grade, she's a star gymnast on her school team, but all of a sudden she's hit by nausea, night sweats, and a host of other opportunistic infections. When her doctor, a family friend, gives her parents the diagnosis, it impacts on the family with all the force of a detonating bomb. But this is only the beginning. This is the 80's when the word AIDS sent ordinarily sensible people into mindless hysteria. Amanda's brother is eight years old and healthy, but his best friend's mother won't let her boy associate with him any more; what if he touched something Amanda touched? The principal of Amanda's school has to deal with frightened parents who think Amanda should be expelled to protect their own children. And the family finds themselves gradually but inexorably isolated: on Halloween night, no one comes knocking for trick or treat.

Hoffman doesn't play cheap with the reader's emotions but this story is a heartbreaker anyway; it reaches us on a visceral level as we watch a vibrant pre-teen on the cusp of life dying slowly of a terrible illness, all too aware of what lies ahead of her, frightened and trying not to be, and knowing that, for all the love and support she gets from her family, ultimately she is in this alone. She writes sparely, almost sparsely, but she packs a truckload of emotions into every sentence. Perhaps the most gut-wrenching scene in the book is when Amanda gets her last wish to have her braces removed, looks into the mirror, and smiles, because she realizes that, if she could live to grow up, she would have been beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: AIDS wears a child's face
Review: There is probably nothing on earth more cruel and inexplicable than the death of a child, especially when a child succumbs to a horribly cruel disease known as AIDS. "At Risk" is the story of Amanda Farrell, 11 years old, who has been carrying a killer virus inside of her for five years, ever since a routine appendectomy in the early 1980's went awry and she had to receive a blood transfusion. They didn't test blood for HIV back then (how far away it all seems now) and Amanda got a dose of contaminated blood that has been slowly, invisibly, but all too relentlessly killing her. She's looking forward to sixth grade, she's a star gymnast on her school team, but all of a sudden she's hit by nausea, night sweats, and a host of other opportunistic infections. When her doctor, a family friend, gives her parents the diagnosis, it impacts on the family with all the force of a detonating bomb. But this is only the beginning. This is the 80's when the word AIDS sent ordinarily sensible people into mindless hysteria. Amanda's brother is eight years old and healthy, but his best friend's mother won't let her boy associate with him any more; what if he touched something Amanda touched? The principal of Amanda's school has to deal with frightened parents who think Amanda should be expelled to protect their own children. And the family finds themselves gradually but inexorably isolated: on Halloween night, no one comes knocking for trick or treat.

Hoffman doesn't play cheap with the reader's emotions but this story is a heartbreaker anyway; it reaches us on a visceral level as we watch a vibrant pre-teen on the cusp of life dying slowly of a terrible illness, all too aware of what lies ahead of her, frightened and trying not to be, and knowing that, for all the love and support she gets from her family, ultimately she is in this alone. She writes sparely, almost sparsely, but she packs a truckload of emotions into every sentence. Perhaps the most gut-wrenching scene in the book is when Amanda gets her last wish to have her braces removed, looks into the mirror, and smiles, because she realizes that, if she could live to grow up, she would have been beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Heart-rending, Moving, Beautiful
Review: This book is a masterpiece. I just finished it like a minute ago, and I'm blown away. "At Risk" touched me deeply. Alice Hoffman writes in a way that drew me in utterly and completely. The characters were real to me, and I love all of them (except the ones that I hate). This book explores the animosity and the baseless fear that people have toward AIDS patients, and how it tears apart friendships. It also showed how AIDS wreaks havoc on families, how family dynamics change when it becomes painfully apparent that a daughter/sister is going to die, and soon.

Hoffman writes beautifully and poignantly. This book is really sad, but it's good like that. It's a sadness that makes you examine your own life -- I know that I take my own life for granted, but after I read this book I realized just how lucky I am. I'm healthy, and so are my family and friends.

I can't even explain it, but this book just touched me so deeply. It broke my heart, that people were so awful to AIDS patients and their families. Although I was too young to be aware of it at the time, AIDS was a big issue when this book was written, and it hurts me that people were so cruel. I commend Alice Hoffman for writing a book like "At Risk." It really opens your eyes.

Her writing is lyrical and unique -- very enjoyable to read. I highly recommend this book to everyone.