Madness and Amelia Earhart: "The Chance You Won"t Return" Review
About.com Rating
The usual teenage struggles seem less important, somehow, against the spectre of mental illness in a loved one. The Chance You Won't Return is a contemporary YA in which the main character has to face all the usual issues of growing up, plus the extra-hard challenge of a mother who begins to believe she's Amelia Earhart, the famous aviator who vanished on a historic flight around the world.
Alex is a typical 16-year-old high school girl, except for the fact that she's failing driver's ed miserably. Every time she takes her turn behind the wheel, anxiety sets in, she panics, and she can't remember what the knobs and levers and pedals do. Otherwise, she hangs out with her friends, fights with her parents, provokes her siblings, and starts to get a crush on the boy who drove his parents' car into the side of their house.
Totally normal. Except as each day goes by, Alex's mother seems more distant and confused. Until she starts believing she's Amelia Earhart. If it was any other historical figure, Alex would just have to worry about her mom being crazy. But Amelia is planning her final flight around the world -- the one she doesn't come back from in the history books. So Alex also has to worry that her mom will disappear, and never come back.
Anyone looking for a sensitive and realistic portrayal of mental illness and how a teen and her family might deal with it will find a good example in The Chance You Won't Return.
Alex is a believable and skillfully-depicted 16 year old girl, going through all the things most teens face in high school: friendships, crushes, teasing, anxiety, and the like. Her relationships with her friends, and the slow development of her friendship, crush, and relationship with a classmate are well done, as is her tempestuous but loving relationship with her family.
The illness of Alex's mother is also very well handled. Art first she's just distant and confused, and through Alex we gradually learn of the various events in her past that have put her under stress. We learn she had a mental breakdown once before, but seemed to recover just fine in a short amount of time. But she hasn't recovered as well as everyone thought, and the author deals with her descent into believing she is someone from history very well.
Despite the generally very good writing and the decent plot structure (I was especially pleased with the way the book concluded on a hopeful note, but didn't introduce a sudden miraculous recovery), and despite the fact that there are plenty of sources of conflict here, this book felt very slow. Slow doesn't have to mean dull, or course. The book I reviewed right before this one, Breakfast Served Anytime, is also a very slow book, but it still managed to keep me captivated and reading. It didn't have a lot of tension or conflict, but it wasn't boring.
I wish I could say the same for The Chance You Won't Return. It does so many things well that it ought to be a much more captivating book. But even though I'm a huge Amelia Earhart fan, and I really wanted to love this book, I found it dull. Not consistently, but enough that I might not have bothered to finish it if I weren't reviewing it.
I almost didn't want to mention that I found The Chance You Won't Return kind of boring. I liked it in many other ways, and the author obviously has a lot of skill, so I hate to say anything that might put readers off giving the book a shot. After all, what's dull for one reader might be the best thing ever for another. But I also think readers ought to know why I gave only three stars to a book I thought had good writing and characterization.
This would be a good book to use in a discussion of mental illness and teens, and many readers will likely find it a more exciting read than I did. For me, I'll be curious to see what this author does next, but I won't run out to buy whatever she writes. Yet. That may well change.
The usual teenage struggles seem less important, somehow, against the spectre of mental illness in a loved one. The Chance You Won't Return is a contemporary YA in which the main character has to face all the usual issues of growing up, plus the extra-hard challenge of a mother who begins to believe she's Amelia Earhart, the famous aviator who vanished on a historic flight around the world.
Publication Information
- Full Title:The Chance You Won't Return
- Author: Annie Cardi
- Publisher: Candlewick Press
- Publication Date: April 2014
- ISBN: 9780763662929 (hardcover)
Parents are Crazy
Alex is a typical 16-year-old high school girl, except for the fact that she's failing driver's ed miserably. Every time she takes her turn behind the wheel, anxiety sets in, she panics, and she can't remember what the knobs and levers and pedals do. Otherwise, she hangs out with her friends, fights with her parents, provokes her siblings, and starts to get a crush on the boy who drove his parents' car into the side of their house.
Totally normal. Except as each day goes by, Alex's mother seems more distant and confused. Until she starts believing she's Amelia Earhart. If it was any other historical figure, Alex would just have to worry about her mom being crazy. But Amelia is planning her final flight around the world -- the one she doesn't come back from in the history books. So Alex also has to worry that her mom will disappear, and never come back.
Mental Illness
Anyone looking for a sensitive and realistic portrayal of mental illness and how a teen and her family might deal with it will find a good example in The Chance You Won't Return.
Alex is a believable and skillfully-depicted 16 year old girl, going through all the things most teens face in high school: friendships, crushes, teasing, anxiety, and the like. Her relationships with her friends, and the slow development of her friendship, crush, and relationship with a classmate are well done, as is her tempestuous but loving relationship with her family.
The illness of Alex's mother is also very well handled. Art first she's just distant and confused, and through Alex we gradually learn of the various events in her past that have put her under stress. We learn she had a mental breakdown once before, but seemed to recover just fine in a short amount of time. But she hasn't recovered as well as everyone thought, and the author deals with her descent into believing she is someone from history very well.
Slow Going
Despite the generally very good writing and the decent plot structure (I was especially pleased with the way the book concluded on a hopeful note, but didn't introduce a sudden miraculous recovery), and despite the fact that there are plenty of sources of conflict here, this book felt very slow. Slow doesn't have to mean dull, or course. The book I reviewed right before this one, Breakfast Served Anytime, is also a very slow book, but it still managed to keep me captivated and reading. It didn't have a lot of tension or conflict, but it wasn't boring.
I wish I could say the same for The Chance You Won't Return. It does so many things well that it ought to be a much more captivating book. But even though I'm a huge Amelia Earhart fan, and I really wanted to love this book, I found it dull. Not consistently, but enough that I might not have bothered to finish it if I weren't reviewing it.
Too Bad
I almost didn't want to mention that I found The Chance You Won't Return kind of boring. I liked it in many other ways, and the author obviously has a lot of skill, so I hate to say anything that might put readers off giving the book a shot. After all, what's dull for one reader might be the best thing ever for another. But I also think readers ought to know why I gave only three stars to a book I thought had good writing and characterization.
This would be a good book to use in a discussion of mental illness and teens, and many readers will likely find it a more exciting read than I did. For me, I'll be curious to see what this author does next, but I won't run out to buy whatever she writes. Yet. That may well change.
Source...