Like feathers

In the Middle of Nowhere by Julie Ann Knudsen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Where to start?
By the beginning, I suppose.

Before I continue I want to thank the author for letting me check on this fantastic book. :D

This is Willow's story, a 16 y.o. girl that for a series of events has to start a new life with her family in a barely known island by the Portland shore named Pike's Island.
What does exactly make a seemly normal girl and her family to move to a place where she is forced to take a ferry everyday to school? Sadly, for Willow, all her problems started when her dad died.
So now she has to deal with everything that comes with moving to a new place and leaving her whole life back.
But, also for Willow, there will be a mysterious boy that will come with necessary changes for her.

If you are like me, you'll feel slightly annoyed, at first. I just wasn't connecting with the story or characters. But I've learned that you can't judge a whole by it's pieces so as always I went on reading. And I'm glad I know that little piece of information. Eventually, a few chapters after, the whole story starts to make sense and it actually makes you get into the story and feel like you are a part of it, too. Don't believe me? I'm telling you, you'll cry, laugh, and actually yell at Willow for some stuff that goes on.
I have to admit that I couldn't stop myself of rolling my eyes a time or two. Willow is immature and, to me, fell flat a couple of times.
But it was just for a couple situations and that is just my normal reacting to bad judgement and lack of common sense. But still Willow is a likeable character that matches the story perfectly.
And you may be asking about the boy. That one was Michael Cooper, a boy that comes and goes for most of the book while Willow discovers herself and her personal strength.

This book was a combination of very common problems for teens such as the loss of a parent, dealing with alcohol and drugs, trying to fit in in a new place, seeing the remaining parent moving on, even first love.
Personally, I love all that's romantic and stuff, but even I have to admit that very very soon all books start to look alike and eventually bores you to death.But In the Middle of Nowhere was like a breath of fresh air. Unlike so many books out there this one does not stuck the main character and this character's love interest together as if they were joined by the hips. Believe me when I tell you that this is all about Willow and her personal growth, dealing with her mom finding someone that cares for her and her children, trying to make some sense out of the high school's "most bitchy" girl and the girls that surround her, experiencing her first hangover, smoking her first joint, even her desire to learn how to drive and get her first job. Like I said, a normal teenager with teenager problems.
So what does all that mean for Michael? Oh, do not worry, he is there alright. But his part was of the subtle type but that doesn't mean that it was not a huge part. After all, it is through Michael that Willow learns more about herself than with anything else that is currently happening in her life. It is him that teaches Willow to open herself up and to try to embrace her life and let go of her fears for those are her only obstacles of truly living.
I loved Michael form beginning to end, he is a writer and a poet with a secret of his own. The reason why he doesn't go to school  and disappears from Willow's life from time to time.
I do not know if it would be right to tell you...
I couldn't believe it when the truth came out, not because of what it was, you could practically figured it out in a second, but because this was the second time that I encountered it in a book. If you've read  Sing Me to Sleep you may know what I'm talking about. And you may also know what I immediately imagined. I dreaded that possible outcome because the heartache would be unbearable a second time.

So I'll leave it there because it's your mission to find out what happened to Willow those first months of her new life. What Michael's secret is. And if everything went right at the end.
Hint: it does not finished as heartbreaking as Sing me to Sleep did.Just so you'll know.

It was a very good read.The language a little too proper sometimes. I felt that maybe it should've been set in England rather than in Maine.
And it has some faults here in there that I won't lose my time trying to explain because you may not look at them as such. My interpretation is mine alone. Yours may be different, and I'm pretty sure it will be. The thing that I want most is for you to enjoy it and to finish it with a feathery feeling inside you.
This story will stuck with me for many, many reasons for a long, long time.
I'll leave you with Michael's words of wisdom:

"Sweet dreams, my dear. Sweet dreams, you dare? Be done with dreams and face your fear."



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