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Summary: Based on the real life experience of losing my father.
Review: Although FADE FAR AWY is a fictional story, I know how it feels to lose a father and feel on the outside, powerless to help. My father, an architect, died when I was fifteen. I often wished I'd had a chance to spend time alone with him during his illness. Instead, I've given my main character, Sienna, that chance."My last novel for young adults, SOMEONE TO LOVE, was chosen as a "Best Book For Young Adults" by the American Library Association.
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Summary: A story of fallen heroes...and the love that remains.
Review: I found Sienna's story fascinating. I started reading and read it straight through in one two-hour sitting. I was caught up in Sienna's emotions, her feelings of being so incredibly close to her father one moment, so dreadfully far the next. Sienna's devotion to her father since childhood grows very strong, her appreciation for his art even stronger. She is an artist herself (although she doesn't think so), and has always been encouraged by her controlling mother and distant father to forget about the details and draw what she feels, and then, just maybe, she might become an artist. But just as she and her father begin to become even the slightest bit close, she learns that he has a brain tumor. She is overcome with many emotions, most centering on her guilt of never really knowing her father, always in his shadow. As soon as Hugh finds that his tumor is malignant, he commisions Sienna to take him to their privately owned island so he can die in peace. On the long journey to Blue Cove Island, Sienna learns many things of her father, ranging from his extramarital affairs to the fact that his first love was painting, not sculpture. Most importantly, Sienna learns that she and her father are similar in many ways. But the vast differences between them that she finds so appalling she must forgive so she can finally let go and love her father for who he is. An excellent read for anyone in the mood for a mature, touching teenage novel.
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Summary: The best book you'll probaly ever read
Review: I picked up this book by chance while wandering around my local library for a good book. Though I enjoy the romance genre more than others, this book touched me so much and had me crying so much from beginning to end. This book is for anyone especially for people who feel that they're parents don't love them cause as you'll read that your parents always love you they just have trouble showing sometimes as the main charcter of this book discovered. Go Pick up this book! Trust me it's amazing!
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Summary: Must-Read for Teens With Terminally-Ill or Suicided Parent
Review: I read this book because my 12-year-old only-child male godchild's father has a brain tumor and I wondered if this book might address any issues that he is facing. It does; in a beautiful and uplifting way that makes its dying father-character's suicide understandable and a kind of affirmation of life. It also treats with unsentimental compassion the mother's denial that the man she has held at the center of her world could be dying. This story throws together the father and only-daughter characters in the crucible of the father's terminal illness in such a way that they finally connect and she accepts the humanness of her parents while *blossoming out of* her own perfectionism and fear to risk being human herself. Heartwarming. Moving. Courage-inspiring. I read it straight through in one sitting. Compellingly written! I was moved to tears toward the end, not by sadness but because I identify with the courage and vulnerability it takes to be human and to accept the limitations and recognize the oh-so-human, flawed love that we earthlings bring to our life-journeys.
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Summary: Fade Far Away...
Review: I've picked up this book at the library and had to read it for my book report. For the first few days that I had the book in my hands, the story did not seem appealing to me probably because of it's cover, but when I decided to really focus into the book it offered me a lot. And Sienna the character was a strong girl who've moved on with her father's death. Its a must read and its also a book that you can relate to. I was in total sympathy and you will be driven in too...
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Summary: FFA is a gripping, sensitive exploration of a teen's growth.
Review: Lantz's Fade Far Away is a sensitive, unsentimental exploration of a young woman's coming of age in relation to her father's sudden slip from vigor to a fatal illness. Issues such as her artist parents' emotional unavailability to Sienna, an "accidental" child born in their 40's, are shown from Sienna's point of view, yet the parents are not demonized: the emotional needs of all three family members are taken into account. This is a "novel of education" in that Sienna, through an unexpected journey with her father to an isolated family vacation spot, sees her father's needs and weaknesses over the course of several days, and comes to an awareness of her own needs in relation to him and her mother. The novel is, in addition, a real page-turner without in the least catering to violence or prurient interests; the central core is the careful unfolding of Sienna's self-awareness and the interaction with her father. In the course of this journey of self-discovery, the character develops an awareness of the complexity of family members' emotional interdependence, while maintaining an awareness of the essential independence of each of the people. The childlike need for creative expression, which is central to the vocation of any artist, is balanced with the adult need to deal with the given limitations of reality. Ultimately, the complementary poles represented by the need to "do your own thing" in the best sense and, conversely, the importance of acknowledging the needs of others, are balanced in this insightful novel.
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Summary: Sad. Sad. Sad.
Review: She is so alone and I felt so sorry for her. When she finally finds out that her father loves her even if he can't show it... it was great. And Caleb, oh my. Her mom was sort of a dork but hey. And the guy Trey. What can I say? I like bad boys.
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Summary: Must Read Novel for Teens
Review: This has got to be the best book I've ever read. It's really deep, and sometimes depressing. I feel for Sienna. It's one of the only books I was ever really in to. Great great great book. I love it.
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