Rating: 
Summary: At Risk
Review: At Risk, by Alice Hoffman
For my book review I chose to write about the book At Risk, by Alice Hoffman. I read this book my sophomore year in high school. At first, I had the attitude of who wants to read a book about aids but after a few chapters I was hooked on it. I even read more of the book than I was supposed to because I wanted to know what was going to happen so badly. This is the one and only book that I have ever read more than I was supposed to for homework.
This book is about a young eleven-year-old named Amanda Farrell who has gotten the aids virus through a blood transfusion. During the short time she was here after getting the virus things went haywire, and her families lives were turned upside-down. Not only did it affect her family, but it also affected the whole community.
The author, Alice Hoffman did a great job of making the characters significant in the story. Each character has been affected, each differently, from the AIDS virus that Amanda had gotten. Ivan, Amanda's father, is a very well developed character. When he consults an AIDS hotline and goes into alternative treatment methods for Amanda we see how scared and desperate he is beneath the surface. It is very hard for him because he is a scientist and does not believe that any of these alternate treatments are going to be beneficial for Amanda. Polly, Amanda's mother, is another significant character in the book. Instead of what many people would expect of someone in her situation, she is actually human and must struggle between her life and her daughter's. Amanda's doctor, Edward Reardon, is probably the most developed character in the entire book. We see how he deals with Amanda, a lifelong patient, being ill with a terminal disease affects him at a professional level as well as a personal level. He is forced to sacrifice time with his own family for time with Amanda and her family.
This tragic event made it very hard on Amanda. Not only did she have to stop gymnastics, the sport she loved, but she as unable to attend her school because parents were complaining and threatening to send their children to private school if they did not do something. Although this novel takes place in the 80's, I still think that it's very wrong to separate a child with such a disease when they already have to worry about so much. The last thing someone with aids would want is to be separated from everyone else. All Amanda ever wanted to be normal. This disease also affected her younger brother Charlie. His best friend's parents no longer let their son hang out with Charlie. So Charlie was basically the loner of the family but he was very strong and caring for Amanda more then anyone.
This book was a very good story and a very sad story as well. It ends with the sense of you don't really realize what you have until its gone. Also many maturing points occur in the novel for Amanda at such a young age where you could see her loss of innocence. If your looking to read a good but sad story that will keep you wanted to read more then I would definitely recommend reading At Risk by Alice Hoffman.
Rating: 
Summary: Amenda, Polly,Ivan,Charlie,Claire,Al are BREAKING UP!
Review: his is a really cool book! Polly had a perfect life. but when her daughter was dignosed with AIDS. She found out that life really stinks sometime. Most people in the town of Morrow hated Polly and his family when they knew that Amenda had had AIDS. They tried to get away from her and despise her family. Two people I found really distasteful was Betsy and Linda the principal. Yet, Ed Rearden was the one who held the family together, he worked day and night with Amenda and size=1>
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Rating: 
Summary: Amenda, Polly,Ivan,Charlie,Claire,Al are BREAKING UP!
Review: his is a really cool book! Polly had a perfect life. but when her daughter was dignosed with AIDS. She found out that life really stinks sometime. Most people in the town of Morrow hated Polly and his family when they knew that Amenda had had AIDS. They tried to get away from her and despise her family. Two people I found really distasteful was Betsy and Linda the principal. Yet, Ed Rearden was the one who held the family together, he worked day and night with Amenda and size=1>
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Rating: 
Summary: I didn't heed the warnings....
Review: I didn't heed the warnings from friends who had read this book and am glad I didn't. They warned me how sad it was. And they warned me how depressing it was. What they didn't say was how simply beautiful it was. Hoffman has so many different aspects of this book going at once--the number of characters and their points of view--it's amazing the way she keeps it simple. Yet nothing in this book is "surface"--it is all deep and gut-wrenching. When an author can lay out this many characters and explain how they feel--and why--with such precision and beauty, I know I want to read more of the author. Alice Hoffman is a new favorite of mine.
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: 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: It's one of the best and most moving books I've ever read.
Review: I have read many, many novels and out of all of them, this novel is one of my favorites. This novel is incredibly moving. I could feel myself being in the book. I could feel the emotions and when I reached the end of the novel, I cried.
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