Blind Faith [Paperback]

Ellen Wittlinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 4, 2007

"I might as well tell you before you hear it someplace else...

My mother is dying. She has leukemia and she came here to die."

Nathan and his adorable little sister just moved in across the street from Liz Scattergood, and both of them could use a friend. Liz just isn't sure she's the right person. What do you say to someone whose mother is dying?

Liz has been coping with tough questions like this all summer. Ever since Liz's grandmother Bunny died, Liz's mother hasn't been the same; she's even started attending a spiritualist church that claims it can contact Bunny on the Other Side. Liz isn't sure she believes it, but she does know the service gives her mother comfort -- something no one else can seem to do at all.

As Liz and Nathan become closer, and the summer draws nearer to its bitter end, questions of faith, mortality, and spirituality come to the forefront of their intimate friendship. There are no easy answers, but together they may nonetheless find hope, comfort, and love.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–After the death of her grandmother, 15-year-old Liz Scattergood is having a hard time getting back to normal. Her mother, who had an extremely close relationship with Bunny, has become deeply depressed, and only visits to a Spiritualist church whose members believe they can communicate with the deceased provide any comfort. Lizs atheist father disapproves, causing anger and tension between him and his wife, and leaving Liz caught in the middle. The new boy who moves in across the street could be a welcome distraction, but he has only come to town to live with his cranky grandmother because his own mother is dying. Comfortable pacing and natural dialogue keep readers engaged in the predominantly emotional action of the story. Wittlinger has created realistic and sympathetic teenage characters whose struggles with grief, love, and faith have no easy answers.–Beth Gallego, Los Angeles Public Library, North Hollywood
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. Fifteen-year-old Elizabeth has always envied the bond that her distracted, artistic mother shared with Elizabeth's grandmother, Bunny, and wonders, "How come I wasn't part of this chain of mother-daughter best friends too?" Then Bunny dies, and Elizabeth feels even more shut out as her mother sinks into a consuming grief. Only visits to a nearby spiritualist church, where members claim to channel the dead, seem to cheer Liz's mom, but the church brings increasing friction with Liz's atheist dad. A fragile romance with Nathan, her new 16-year-old neighbor, helps Liz begin to talk about her complicated feelings. Once again, Wittlinger brings readers right into a teen's roiling emotional life with sensitive, skillful descriptions, written in Liz's voice, of how feelings register: Liz understands Nathan's sadness in his "low-key, no-wattage, half smile" and her mother's grief in the lost energy that leaks "like air from a knifed tire." Not all characters, including Liz's mother, feel fully developed, but the precisely observed, palpable moments and provocative questions about faith make a memorable story. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (December 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416949062
• ISBN-13: 978-1416949060
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #313,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, July 26, 2006

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blind Faith (Hardcover)

It was bad enough when fifteen-year-old Liz Scattergood's grandmother, Bunny, died. It's even worse now that her mother seems to have gone crazy. For weeks her mom wouldn't get out of bed, wouldn't eat dinner with Liz and her father, wouldn't even brush her hair. Although Liz understands that her mother and Bunny had a special bond, were more like sisters, in fact, than mother and daughter, Liz doesn't understand the extreme depression. That was almost preferable, though, to what happens when her mother snaps out of her funk and finally leaves the darkened comfort of her bedroom. Because now she's found religion--or, in this case, Spiritualism, where the congregation and leaders believe they can communicate with the spirits of the dead.

After her mom's first visit to Singing Creek, the Spiritualist Church, she comes home acting alive for the first time in weeks. Liz is curious enough to agree to accompany her the following Saturday, but Liz's dad is none too pleased with the developments. For him, religion is filled with hypocrites and fools, and the crazies that attend Singing Creek are the worst of the lot--they hold out hope to those who have lost someone they love, convincing them that they can really "talk" to the dearly departed's spirit.

For Liz, these new arguments of her parent's is shaking up her once comfortable life. Added to that is the new family who has moved in across the street. There's Courtney, [...]and a total joy, and fifteen-year-old Nathan, who always seems so angry. Their mother, Lily, is dying of leukemia and has come home to spend her final days with her mother, dubbed by Liz as Mrs. Crabby. As Liz enters into a tenuous friendship with Nathan bordering on a first love, and takes Courtney under her wing, she's confused by her father's anger, her mother's obsession with communicating with her dead mother, and the fact that life in Tobias isn't as calm and easy as she'd always believed it to be.

Ms. Wittlinger has penned a beautiful story in BLIND FAITH. This is the story of hope and faith, of love and loss, of life and death. As Liz fights to understand why she doesn't have the same type of bond with her mom that her mother had with Bunny, as Nathan and Courtney learn to live without their mother, and as everyone involved learns how important it is to always have hope, these two families will be forever entwined. A very heartfelt, tender story, you won't go wrong reading BLIND FAITH.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommend It, April 10, 2008

By 

Michelle (Somewhere, USA!) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blind Faith (Paperback)

I'm not good at summarizing so I'm not but Blind Faith is really good. The plot of the book is about something that I've never read about before, I'm pretty sure it's very rare but it is very good. It's sad but not extremely (I didn't cry or anything) and I finished it in just a few days (which is good for me since I don't have much time on my hands) RECOMMEND IT!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving tale of loss and new beginnings, February 9, 2007

By 

Teenreads.com (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blind Faith (Hardcover)

Award-winning author Ellen Wittlinger is known for her emotional and poignant teen novels like SANDPIPER and Printz Honor Book HARD LOVE. In her latest effort, BLIND FAITH, she delivers yet again with a tale of loss and new beginnings.

When 15-year old Liz Scattergood's grandmother Bunny dies, Liz's mother falls into a depression. People always said that Liz's mom and Bunny were "more like sisters or best friends than mother and daughter," which makes Liz feel strange. How come she isn't like this with her own mother?

Her mother is so depressed over the loss of Bunny that she won't get out of bed or work on her pottery in the studio. Then one day, she announces she's going to the Singing Creek Spiritualist Church to "contact Bunny." Liz's father, an atheist, isn't thrilled about the idea, but Liz's mother goes, and only then does her life return to normal. She gets out of bed. She works on her pottery. And now, she goes to the Spiritualist Church every week. Although Liz isn't sure what she thinks of the spiritualists, she agrees to go with her mother and hopes that maybe they will bond over their experience of contacting Bunny. But this just pushes Liz's father away and causes more of a rift within the family.

While Liz is dealing with her own chaos, she becomes entangled with the lives of the new neighbors: Nathan, a boy her age, and Courtney, his younger sister. Nathan, Courtney, and their mother Lily have just moved in with their grandmother, the old lady who lives across the street and who Liz calls Crabby. But as Liz gets to know Nathan, she learns that he has problems too. His mother has a terminal disease and she might die. Plus, everyone's keeping it a secret from Courtney because she's too young to understand.

As Nathan and Liz confide in each other about their problems, they become close and a tender friendship and romance emerge.

Ellen Wittlinger is a wonderful writer who has an amazing ability to portray realistic teens in difficult situations. She gets right to the root of emotional issues and twists them in a way that readers can relate and sympathize deeply with the characters. Even though BLIND FAITH deals with the topic of death, there are many uplifting moments in this story.

--- Reviewed by Kristi Olson