Record a voice and it lasts forever…
In 1993, Ryan records a diary on an old tape. He talks about his mother’s death, about his dreams, about his love for a new girl at school who doesn’t even know he exists.
In 2013, Ameliah moves in with her grandmother after her parents die. There, she finds a tape in the spare room. A tape with a boy’s voice on it – a voice she can’t quite hear, but which seems to be speaking to her.
Ryan and Ameliah are connected by more than just a tape.
This is their story
My thoughts
I have been keenly waiting to get my hands on this book for a good while now and was delighted when I was offered a copy for review. I am glad to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Of me this book was all about the 90s nostalgia. I loved Ryan's story in particular and seeing all those things I grew up with written about! the lack of mobile phones and the Internet, the fashion and the music that was big at the time. It made me pine for those times when you weren't contactable at every waking minute of every day.
The story telling in this book is unusual as it flits backwards and towards from Ryan to Ameliah and tells Ameliah's story in present tense which doesn't always work for me but in this case I think it did because if the nature of the story and differentiates between Ameliah's story in the present and Ryan'ss Tory in the past using the different tenses. I did find it meant that I found myself warming to Ryan's story more and found it harder to relate to Ameliah.
For me the most fascinating bit of this book was working out how the two stories joined together. Maybe it is the historian in me who gets fascinated with family trees and ancestors but I loved trying to work out how the characters features were linked and I must admit for a change I actually guessed parts of the story before they were revealed which is something I rarely manage to do accurately.
All in all a fab read which I thoroughly enjoyed
Comments
Fab review :)