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Title: Wake

Author: Abria Mattina

Narrator: Maria Hunter Welles

Format: Unabridged

Length: 28 hrs and 59 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-14-13

Publisher: Abria Marie Mattina

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 20 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Eighteen isn't too young to run your life into the ground, but it's not too old to fix it, either. The desire for change drives Willa Kirk from St. John's, Newfoundland back to her hometown of Smiths Falls, Ontario, away from her mistakes and the place where her sister died.

She's looking for a place to settle and rebuild, but Jem Harper just wants to get out of town, back to the life he knew before cancer. By letting the tragedies in their lives define them, they are both dying a little more every day. Welcome to the wake.

Members Reviews:

A compelling read that sucks you in (4.5)

How do you write a coming-of-age story when both of your protagonists have been through more than most adults?

'Wake' is a sometimes painful, often compelling story about two teenagers who form a reluctant friendship. Jem is a pariah in his school - a cancer patient, newly in remission, who makes his classmates uncomfortable with his sickly appearance and prickly demeanor. Willa is the newly returned girl to town - popular, but with a painful and dark past stemming from her sister's death from cancer. Willa's experiences give her unique insight into Jem, much to his dismay.

What follows is an all-too-real push and pull between two people who barely like each other, put together in an evolving and devolving relationship as they learn each others' secrets. It's a slow start, but once you get involved, it's difficult to put down. It's fascinating to watch these characters drag each other out into the light. Willa is intent on 'killing' Jem's notion of who he is. Jem realizes he has to help Willa see that she is not her mistakes. There are points that will make you want to cry and others when you want to smack them in the back of the head. The important thing is that you feel for them - the story feels and hurts in a genuine way.

My favorite thing about this book are the exchanges of dialogue. It's the first thing I truly appreciated about it on the first read (I've read it cover-to-cover twice, which is saying something considering the length). Mattina writes dialogue that not only sounds real, but is also structured in such a way that it doesn't feel like repetitive "he said, she said," or abuses the use of character names to lead the reader from speaker to speaker. There are also some bits that are just funny as hell.

On the negative side of things, I wish this had gone through one more pass with an editor.

-It is long, and could have probably benefited from some paring down. However, as a reader, I would be loathe to perform that task myself. Excising any part of the narrative would be a difficult task in general, but in dealing with a story as compelling and well-written as this, it becomes nearly impossible.

-There are several instances where there are typos (word skips), etc. Granted, they're all minor, minor errors. Unfortunately, there are enough of them that it takes away the polish on a great book. It's the only thing, in my mind, that shows the difference between this being an indie production, versus not having gone through the 'traditional' process.