Customer Reviews

Defect

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

David is more than just odd, or strange, or different. David is kind of a genetic anomaly, truly a freak of nature. His "hearing aids" actually minimize sound, under his hat are bat-like ears, and under his sweatshirt, well, that's the craziest part of all. David actually has wings. Not big feathery things, but a thin layer of tissue that allows him to coast through the air if he jumps from a high point.

Anybody in high school knows that being different isn't usually a good thing. Even the wrong haircut can lead to months of torture. For David, his differences could be life threatening. He's already been shipped from foster home to foster home, from school to school. When he gets in trouble at his most recent school, he prepares to start all over, again, somewhere else. This time though, the only thing that changes is the school. Amazingly, this time he might actually be okay. Sure, he's still not telling anybody about the hearing and the wings, but he's not getting beat up, either. And, he might actually have a girlfriend!

David accompanies his maybe girlfriend, Cheetah, to the Mayo clinic, and finds out some surprising information about himself. Along with a few creepy flashbacks. With this new information, David is going to have some very tough choices to make, and some harder lessons to learn.

I was expecting something completely different from this story, but I couldn't have been happier to be completely wrong! This story is incredibly touching and powerful, and honest. All of the characters are amazing and strong and realistic. The choices David makes may not be the ones you would make, but you feel the weight of them right along with him. And the lessons he learns are the simple but huge kind that everyone needs to be reminded of from time to time. It's a beautiful, simple, incredible thing.

Reviewed by: Carrie Spellman

DOn't Fit in? Wish you could fix it? what if you could? would you rather change yourself forever or be the miracle people need to see? this book is a real heart warmer!

If you read the inside jacket flap of this book, it sounds like this book is going to be a cool fantasy story about a young teenage boy with wings that can fly. Wrong. If you are looking for a paranormal fantasy, don't buy this book, this is not what it appears to be. David, our protagonist, does indeed have wings and can fly, but his uniqueness is treated in this story as a birth defect. And with that, what we the readers get is a touchy feely story about acceptance. This novel is about people accepting other people for who they are and not what they look like, whether they are normal or not. Once I got over the disappointment that this was certainly not going in a fantasy-like direction, I felt ok with going with the flow of the way this river was running. However, the story just does not deliver the goods in anyway shape or form. David is living with foster parents in the midwest after being abandoned by his real birth mother who was a drug addict and couldnt deal with his defect. These Ozzie and Harriet foster parents are so unreal, so improbable or believable that they are two characters simply too hard to swallow. I found that there were a lot of sideline plots to the story that start out, and then disappear without coming back or resolution, characters introduced that vanish. The only redeeming character worth meeting in this book is David's girlfriend Cheetah, who has Epilepsy and is just adorable in her own defective self. But even her addition to the story starts out interesting and falls flat at the end. This book needed more plot, more action, more serious drama, more substance and story period, and a much better ending. Sappy and not satisfying is all I can come up with and I just can not recommend this disappointing book that could have been interesting if written well.

This book is well written and thought provoking. I will not go into plot details but rather recommend that you read this book and share it with a young person you care about. It is a great jumping off point for conversation. My son and I had a great time discussing this book and playing the 'what if' game. Try it and you will have read a great book and hopefully will be reminded how thoughtful young people can be.

This wasn't an awful book, but there was nothing good about it either. David's character is not well developed or explained. He is bullied at the beginning of the book and gets transferred to a special school, where he meets his girlfriend Cheetah. The bullies come back into the story, but their storyline is never finished. Nor does the author ever explain why David eats bugs. Overall I was very disappointed with this book