Wonder When You'll Miss Me : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: From Adolecence to Adulthood.
Review: Wonder Where You'll Miss Me by Amanda Davis is a very funny, touching story about the cruel reality of what happens to adolescents that are transitioning into adulthood.The story beings with the gang rape of an overweight 16 year old girl, by the name of Faith Duckle. While she is at her school's homecoming game, she is lured under the bleachers by eleven boys who do nothing but insult and tease her. After that horrible incident she feels very alone and depressed and tries to commit suicide. She then ends up in a mental hospital where she loses 48lbs and makes a friend named Starling. Before dying, Starling tells Faith about her bother Charlie who travels the country with the circus. When Faith is released she is inspired by Charlie's stories and keeps the circus life in mind.
When she returns to school she is a thinner more confident girl, but is constantly tormented by her imaginary "fat girl" companion. The "fat girl" who is the reminder of who she used to be, subconsciously tells her that she might be able to lose weight, but she'll never let go of the person she was. She also tells her to seek revenge against the only boy who showed her compassion at the time she was raped. Faith, in turn, physically assaults him and then runs away from home. The fat girl character in the story symbolizes that no matter how much you grow and change, something of your past will always be with you.
Trying to escape from the haunting "fat girl", Faith runs away to join the traveling Fartlesworth Circus. She establishes a new identity and names herself Annabelle Cabinet. At first she begins by picking up garbage, then works her way up to assisting with costumes, grooming the elephants and, eventually,practicing with the trapeze artists.
This story has a lot of circus details about the circus life and how it has transformed faith from a naive girl to a girl with a lot of self confidence. "It was this lightness, this emptiness, this trust that you weren't about to plummet to an unforgiving surface, powered by the weight of yourself. No. You would spin and be caught, you would flip and fall and catch, and you would swing back to a platform at the end, arms in the air, high above the crowd, proud of your victory over what hadn't happened." The circus is the place where Annabelle gradually lets go of her past and overcomes the difficult parts that have consumed her youth.
I truly recommend Wonder Where You'll Miss Me because Amanda Davis sends a strong message to those young readers who feel that they are very lonely and confused. Faith is a very distressed, tormented girl who has had a very tuff childhood, but amidst the darkness in her life she finds a place, the circus, where she accomplishes emotional stability, independence and meaning. You see her being a lonely damaged young girl to a girl who puts her life together by finding love and acceptance. This story proves that any teenager who is going trough difficult times in their life can overcome the hardships by finding something they love to motivate them.