Customer Reviews

Letters From The Inside (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition)

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I think some of today's best writing comes from the "young adult female" (i.e. teen girl) genre. I'll unabashedly say I read a half-dozen of these books a year, though I left membership in that demographic in the last decade.

Australian John Marsden's novel might stun post-teen readers with how good it is. Not a cliché in sight, the writing is not watered-down, and it's more intelligently plotted than most of what's published for "adults".

This is an epistolatory novel, set over one year. Read between the lines: that's where the true story lies. Things start when sixteen-year-old Mandy answers an ad placed by Tracey, another sixteen-year-old, seeking a pen-pal. At first letters between this pair are the expected mélange of teenage thoughts and goings-on, but rapidly we get the hint that matters aren't as idyllic in Tracey's life as Tracey leads on. No, this isn't another after-school special where one girl rescues another from abuse, drugs, or any other calamity accounting for most of the fare in teen stories. This is different. It does not slip the reins of realism for one second.

If you want to be surprised, stop here. Otherwise....

....I'll finish. See, Tracey is not truly living the idealistic life about which she first tells Mandy. Tracey's incarcerated for a violent crime that shames her. She faces a sentence that will keep her behind bars well into adult life. Mandy on the other hand comes from a middle-class background with married parents and a brother who .... is not well-adjusted. As the letters come and the story unfolds, we begin to understand that Mandy needs to tell Tracey her problems probably more than Tracey does Mandy. Though they've never met, this is a friendship with great meaning to each of the girls. Over the year, we really get inside their minds and feel for them. We want Tracey to have a second-chance and the future Mandy, free in the outside world, can have. And we want Mandy to never outgrow her friend who is far away and miserable with the circumstances her actions have put her in.

We want a lot of things to be different from how we learn they are.

Let me end by confessing that this book delivers one of the most emotionally-wrenching conclusions ever written. No, I don't exaggerate. I'll offer this advice: don't read Marsden's book if you think you might not be up to a suggestive ending that hits very, very hard. You're warned.

Ten years ago I discovered a copy of John Marsden's Letters from the Inside at my Library. I took it out because I was big into writing pen pals at that time in my life and thought it might be a good book. That one book started a lifelong love of John Marsden's writing.

Letters from the Inside is one of the most chilling books I have ever read. I've read it three or four times in the last ten years and in each read-through, I discover one more facet of the story that I've missed. The book itself, taken at face value, is not so chilling - it's what your mind creates to fill in the spaces that Marsden leaves in his story. What did Tracey do to end up where she is? What happened to Mandy? What happened to her family? Who marked "return to sender" on the letters? Will Tracey ever find out what happened to Mandy? Will Tracey ever make it back into the real world? The mind creates the darkest scenarios to those questions.

It takes a special kind of writer to make a story work with the "cliffhanger" ending. Any other writer and I'd probably have chucked the book at the wall in frustration. Part of me wishes there was a sequel to this book so that I could find out what happens next... and part of me knows that a sequel to the story wouldn't be possible.

Everyone should own this book. Or if not this one, then one of Marsden's other books. Tomorrow, When the War Began is amazing as well. I would place John Marsden at the top of my favorite author list any day, and no matter how old I get (I'm 22 now and still reading him!), I don't think that will change.

You find yourself online talking to random people that you never met before. After a couple of e-mailsyou start to be the best of friends. You talk as if you knew the person your whole life. If that is what you are into then "letters From the Inside" is a great book for you. Try putting an ad in a newspaper looking for a pen pal and then receiving a letter from someone. You are a bit surprised you got a letter. Throughout all the letters each one revealing a different detail about the person.
John Marsden has done a great job in writing the book by not putting the in chapters but by letters. This makes it easier for some people to read. Marsden leaves a lot of holes which your immagination has to fill in. With cliff hangers and the adolescent language this would be more appropriate for high school students. I really enjoyed the book. My mom couldn't keep me away from this book and I dislike reading.

I read "Letters From The Inside" in the third grade, and it just... haunted me. The ending I mean. I read it a few times since, and my love for this book didn't go away. The book is about Mandy, who, bored one day, answers an ad she saw in a teen magizine, seeing she has some things in commom with Tracy, the girl she is writing too, like they both like the group Power Without Glory. Mandy and Tracy start writing to each other about their familys, friends, school, boyfriends, ect, and Mandy thinks that Tracy has the perfect life- great boyfriend, nice siblings, rich parents, ect- until Mandy finds out that Tracy in in a teen prison. Only afer "haressing" Tracy for awhile does Tracy aswer Mandy, and then the book goes into an amazing twist. The ending is totally haunting and open, and leaves you with a lot of stuff to think about. Pick this book up.

This is really a terrific young adult book, deserving of all the best book lists it made it to. The whole book is the letters of 2 girls writing to each other, both seeming to have it all. As they write, some surprising truth's come out and they grow closer. The letters and thoughts of these kids are riveting and the ending is powerful, shocking and disturbing. Not like any book I've read before and I still think about it & count it as one of my favorite youth books years after reading it. I'd recommend it for mature teens and adults.

Yet very good. Big surprises at the end, so make sure you don't peak. A killer of a book. buy it. it is done in letter form, entirely. Very innovative.

ok, ive read this book about three times now. i know its obvious that steve killed the family. but i think its almost too obvious to be what happened.

second, tracey got done for being an acomplis to murder or something similar. You can see this by what tracey hints at in her letters throughout the book, and if you look up the "letters from the inside" book on the net you can find a site that explains John Marsden's inspiration, one of them was an article on a girl who's boyfriend was a murderer.

Now either mandy actually was killed by adam her boyfriend, i dont think thats likely so the only reasonable explanation for the link with the article is that tracey's boyfriend was a murderer. All the other inspirations clearly fit in with the story.

I have no idea what RWV is though. I would like to find out somehow, if someone knows...


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i would love any info on the unknown aspects of this book! thanks.

Overall this is a great book, i enjoyed reading, so much i read it three times! it really is a wonderful story and John Marsden is a fabulous author, i enjoy his books very much. Im a big fan of his work.

I liked this book very much. It left me in suspense a lot and made me want to keep reading. It was also very easy to understand and follow. The only thing I didn't like about this book was the ending. It was very sudden and I would really like to know what happened next. Maybe the author will write a sequel, but I don't know. I hope so. Anyway, if I were you, I would read this book, but be prepared to be guessing in the end.

`Letters from the Inside' was one of the books I read for my Young Adult Literature list, and I really liked it. It starts out rather superficially, two girls writing letters to each other about their daily lives. One of the girls is a bit jealous of the other, because she has such a wonderful life, rich, etc. But when you read along things turn out to be completely different. A deep and warm friendship develops between these girls although they have never met, and the end of the book is really heartbreaking. I think it is a great book, it's a wonderful book to use in schools as well, because it deals with a lot of topics important to teenagers! One warning though: once you start reading, it is impossible to put aside...

I'm a Mum looking for some input into the suitability of this novel for my 14 year old son who is studying it for Year 9 English (Australia). The book is about the "pen pal" relationship between 2 adolescent girls but focusses on many issues facing both female and male teenagers. My concern is that these issues are portrayed in just a little too mature a way for early teens ... especially the ending (As an adult I had trouble dealing with it no doubt because Marsden has the ability to make his characters very real and in the process makes you care about them ... even Steve). I noticed that many of the reviews of this book make the same observation in one way or another ... and from teenagers not parents. I ended up reading parts of this book to my son as if it was a movie script and then talking with him about it ... my concern is that some teenagers will be left to deal with these issues alone if it is a "prescribed" school text ... and the issues are not really "prescribed" issues ie. I suspect schools generally are not prepared to deal with the fallout from students reading this kind of novel.