Customer Reviews

Numbers: Book 1

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(47)
3 star:		(43)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Rachel Ward's NUMBERS has a good premise: a teenage British girl who can see your "number" (that is, the date of your death) just by looking into your eyes. It's the kind of "blessing" that is, in fact, a "curse" and has all kinds of possibilities as a science fiction thriller. The trouble is, NUMBERS has an identity problem. It's a coming-of-age tale that wants badly to be a science fiction piece and ultimately winds up being a hybrid -- one that doesn't quite satisfy on either front.

Not that there's a lack of things to like about the book. It maintains your interest as the protagonist, Jem, a rather street-smart type, hooks up with Spider, a black ne'er-do-well who gets in trouble with the law and goes on the lam with his sweetheart. In fact, the "road" portion of the book, where Jem and Spider are fleeing authorities after witnessing a terrorist attack (they ran because Jem saw the same numbers -- that day's -- in all the people's eyes), is the best stretch of all, as it allows Ward to show a deft hand at characterization and humor. But the numbers keep getting in the way, and when they do, you expect Ward to go somewhere with them. She never quite does that. Instead, the book holds to realism more than you might expect, and you grow increasingly intolerant of a numbers sub-plot that ultimately transforms into an irritant. It all lands in a heap at the end -- an eye-roll "surprise" line at the finish which doesn't quite satisfy and seems a bit pat.

Still, I wager that the book might appeal to older teens (if it were a movie, it would assuredly earn its "R" rating) curious as to what happens with the death-date thing. I myself wondered how Ward would handle it. But ultimately it was the "book that wasn't" that I liked best -- the narrative of an unlikely "odd couple" falling in love. Take away the premise of the numbers and there you have it: a solid story of two dumb but lovable kids. Gimmick-free, that alone could have carried the novel in my mind.

The earlier reviewer who wrote: "The book started off strong, bogged down in the middle, and then whimpered toward an unsatisfying predictable ending" was spot on.

The premise is that Jem, a 15 year old orphaned girl in London knows when people will die. When she looks someone in the eye, a date pops into her head; that date is the day the person will die. Knowing when others will die leads Jem to avoid personal relationships with everyone; she never lets anyone get too close.
Jem, begrudgingly, befriends another social outcast like herself nick-named Spider. When the pair finds themselves suspended from school, they head for the tourist areas of London, and wind up making a bit of a scene in front of the London Eye. Jem then notices that a bunch of people in line for the Eye have the same number: today.

It's a wonderful setup that quickly devolves into familiar themes and worn out cliches.

The big lure of "Numbers" is centered around the London Eye, but this particular plot device runs its course rather rapidly (and yet, is never resolved). It's merely the launching point for the "grand adventure" in the book. I put grand adventure in quotes there to signify that it's really not all that grand. I completely understand the author's decision to use this event as a fulcrum, but the adventure that follows seems to glorify being homeless, not showering, and stealing. I could mention a few other items, but I don't want to completely give the story away.

The upshot for me being that Jem and Spider make some SERIOUSLY bad choices and the author justifies these choices by saying it's because of where they come from. Blaming society... hasn't that been done already?

There are, however, a few memorable moments in the book where Rachel Ward scores a direct hit. When the kids first encounter cows ("That cow is sick...") is the comedic high-point of the book. And when Jem's foster-mom asks her if she's ever been camping gets major points for symmetry and poetry.

I'd imagine that the target audience for this book is mid- to late-teen girls, but I'm not too sure if the bleak and hopeless adventure that makes up 80% of the book is going to satisfy them.

For me, "Numbers" was formulaic, thematic, predictable, and unsatisfying. I have a feeling a lot of others will agree with me.

3 Stars - First off, I almost didn't finish reading Numbers. It kept me forever waiting for something to happen. I never felt that I connected with either of the characters until I'd say the last few pages. Then I finally felt like Jem was or could be a real person, who was more then the hard shell she put up around her.

After I finished reading, I figured a few things out, that the parts of the book that dragged for me, needed to drag for the end result to have the affect on me that it did. To be able to really see just what the message of this book was, there needed to be all that came before it. At least for me to be able to understand things that is.

The message is finally clear in the last few pages and I'm sure there are other readers out there who will have the same reaction I did. I don't want to tell anyone because it will give too much away.

Jem is such a strong 15 year old girl that sometimes that strong nature gets in the way. She tries to stay away from everyone for her fear of the numbers that she knows are the dates people will die, she just doesn't understand why she can see them or what they really mean.

Along the way she allows herself to connect with a fellow classmate Spider. After witnessing a horrible event, they run. Most of this story is of the two of these characters as they flee from London. Oh, and that's another thing I loved about this book. It's all set in England. Some who aren't familiar to British terms or slang might be a little confused, but don't let that bother you. With the internet it's easy to look things up to understand what the various things mean.

Jem and Spider somehow fit together. They are both so different from each other and yet they work. At the end of the book I was rooting for them in their relationship and in their troubles with the police.

As I said before, there's a bigger picture to this whole story, it just took this reader awhile to get there. If it wasn't for the ending I don't think, no correction - I would not have been able to give it the star rating that I did.

If you're just picking this book up and want to give up, keep reading. If your hearing mixed reviews, give it a try; just don't give up on it. The message at the end is well worth it. I'll be reading the sequel - Numbers 02. The Chaos, what about you?

Jem has the unique ability to see numbers when looking people in the face. The numbers are the date they will die. When she notices several people will die the same day that she's at the London Eye, she panics and leaves with her friend. When a mass of people die in an explosion, police naturally look to two teenagers seen fleeing right before a massive explosion.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. While the premise is interesting and unique, the execution feels lacking. A lot of the subject matter bothers me. This is supposed to be written for teens, yet her best friend is a drug dealer and the foul language is distracting. There seems to be little consequences for the bad choices that the teens make. While there is a little suspense, I wish the story focused more on Jem's ability. Instead, it seems like a subplot to their run from the police. I wanted to like this, but it just ended up leaving me feeling disappointed.

At fifteen, Jem has seen more hardship than most. She's been shuffled from foster home to foster home in bad neighborhoods with uncaring teachers and foster parents ever since her mother died of a drug overdose when she was seven. But even all of the awful homes and people aren't nearly as bad as the numbers she sees--eight digit numbers that appear whenever she meets someone's eye, predicting their date of the death. This terrible knowledge forces Jem to withdraw within herself and never make friends...until she meets Spider. Spider only has a few weeks left, so she feels compelled to be nice to him.

But when on an outing at the London Eye with Spider, Jem sees something uncanny: everyone around them has the same death date. Today. She and Spider flee the scene, only to witness a bomb explode minutes later. Now on the run, Jem must confront her fear and her issues with her ability, and her growing feelings for Spider.

Rachel Ward's Numbers is a surprising novel with a very interesting and unconventional concept. Jem is a very honest narrator, someone most of us would describe as from the "wrong side of the tracks". Her life is hard, and it has made her a very tough and determined person. Ward speaks very realistically about what life is like for Jem and Spider, living in the projects with teachers and other authorities thinking less of them because of their background. Her take on them and their situation really makes you understand why they might be considered "problem kids" and why they fear the police, but also makes you very sympathetic towards them as well, even if they're views might be a little skewed.

As for the plot, Ward did take some time setting it up, and you do expect a bit more of an action-packed read as the pace did slow and the story dragged slightly in the middle while Spider and Jem were fleeing, but the novel isn't really as much about the action and adventure as it is about Jem learning to open up and live a life despite having her morbid ability as she falls for Spider and begins to understand her mother and her actions. Of course, the romance is wrought with tension as Jem knows that Spider's time is winding down, and she struggles to come up with a way to save him without ever knowing what will ultimately take him away from here. The ending is both a little predictable and surprising at the same time, and it will be very interesting to see how Ward will continue the story in her planned sequel. Definitely check out Numbers if you are up for something both unique and convincing.

I wanted to like Numbers and I really wish it had been better. Numbers was an okay story. Someone seeing the date of a persons death by just looking into their eyes is a great idea, but I found the telling a little too dull and was never drawn into the plot. I could have put it down at any time and not regretted picking it back up.

I would have liked if Jem saw the numbers more often. The numbers were the catalyst for the entire story, but as I got farther along in the book, the numbers weren't mentioned as often. The story diverged from an original science fiction tale and became about the love story between Jem and Spider.

Jem was a highly unsympathetic character. She's had a hard life and her rude attitude makes sense, but I couldn't care about her at all. I don't mind cursing. Often, I don't notice it at all, but Jem's cursing was constant and needless. It was as if she was trying too hard to be tough.

I didn't care about Spider either. Both were outcasts looking for acceptance, which they found in each other. Still, I couldn't see them together. She was astoundingly negative and he was gross. She often mentioned how unattractive he was and that he smelled as though he didn't shower often, yet she ultimately ends up sleeping with him.

The ending was an unnecessary glorification of teen pregnancy, showing that a baby is a great way to hold onto a physical piece of boy. It sent the wrong message. While I completely support the author's right to write the story however she sees fit, I didn't feel that it added anything beneficial to the already mediocre story.

When I first heard about this book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. The premise is so unique, with the potential to delve into interesting topics like fate vs. choice.

The story starts off strong, and we find out that Jem can see the day a person will die just by looking into his eyes. That, combined with her home life and how young she was when she learned the meaning of the numbers, made for a strongly compelling story. Plus, the writing was strong, and the pacing was quick and clean - I finished the book in one sitting (which I didn't intend to do).

For the first quarter of the book, I was glued to the pages. I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next. Then the London Eye thing happens, which launches the adventure part of the story. I didn't quite understand the need to flee, but was willing to go with it. After all, kids that age do stupid things even when it's obvious they shouldn't. :) So I hoped all would make sense later.

But then that picture of Jem surfaced awful easily. I realize they'd left a trail, but still. Making a connection to her that quickly, with her hair so drastically changed, seemed a bit far fetched. Also, tracking dogs lost two city kids in the woods? Um... This, and a few other things, pulled me out of the story and the logical side of my brain butted in, commenting on how this or that was either impossible or improbable.

That said, I was still enjoying the book. Until I got to the very end, on the roof of Bath Abbey.

When I first picked up this book, I was really hoping the author would delve into fate vs. choice. And I was anxious to see how it would relate to Jem's growth as a character. But it doesn't happen. The closest we get is Jem waffling between 'the numbers are real' and 'the numbers are bogus' several times, with no evidence or insights to back it up. Her big epiphany on the roof isn't new - she'd had it before and then resolved it on her own. So it's not very compelling the second time around, and makes the end result feel contrived.

Also, that end result has a strong 'Fate rules all' stamp on it, which stunts the growth of both the novel and Jem. For two reasons. 1) In the beginning of the story, Jem is very much a follower of fate, letting it shunt her wherever it will and not making any choices for herself. So to have fate rear up so strongly in the end makes everything depressing, and also left me wondering about the point of the book. 2) We don't get to see how Jem deals with the incident on the roof. The story just skips over her mental hardships, so we don't get her experience of going from being broken to being able to take care of Karen.

What really killed the story for me, though, was the last page. But that's also my personal preference - I think this is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of ending, and I know others who love twists like this. But, for me, it felt too much like a plot device, which turned me off completely, and now I have no desire to read the sequel.

A few reviewers have commented that they thought the content was too strong for young adults. There is plenty of violence, strong language, and sex, so I think it's not appropriate for younger teens. But I think older teens would relate. The potential problem I see is that Jem is fifteen, and teens prefer to read about older protagonists, not younger. So that may turn them off.

From the description of "Numbers", I expected an exciting science fiction type book. When 15 year old Jem looks at someone she can "see" the day they are going to die. This ability is a major part of the book. However, instead of a being written as a thriller, the book concentrates on how that "gift", along with the death of her mother from a drug overdose, has isolated Jem from others. Another event which occurs in the book isolates her even further.

Jem and a boy that she befriends (the first friend she has ever had) have both had rough lives and most of their early "conversations" consist of the two characters posturing and avoiding growing closer. I found the story dark and hard to read.

The book says that it's intended for grades 8 through 12, but I do not recommend this for 8th and 9th graders due to mature content and very strong language. There is supposed to be a sequel in the works and the very last sentence of the book was very intriguing. However, I thought the same thing about the premise of "Numbers" and didn't like the book, so I won't be reading the sequel.

This was a so-so YA novel about a girl who has the peculiar ability of knowing the date of a person's death by simply looking into his or her eyes. The premise was original and it started out well, but then the "on the run" narrative got bogged down and the conclusion was disappointing.

Jem is orphaned when her mother overdoses on heroin. Four years later, she's 15 and living with a foster mum named Karen, avoiding relationships and living on the fringe because of her peculiar psychic gift for seeing the date of death numbers reflected in the eyes of the people she sees. She doesn't want this curse or gift and is drifting through her life knowing that she is going nowhere even as she attends school to pacify Karen and keep the social workers off her back. One of her fellow students, a tall boy known as Spider, keeps pestering her and following her around until they form a distant and grudging sort of friendship. After both get suspended from school, they decide to spend a day enjoying the city and end up hassling those in a queue for the London Eye -- a giant Ferris wheel. Jem notices something quite odd -- many of those waiting there have the SAME death date in their eyes! In a panic, she senses that something is about to happen and she and Spider are fleeing the area when a bomb explodes and many people are killed. During the ensuing chapters, Jem and Spider are on the run from police and others intent on figuring out if they were involved or if they were witnesses. Jem is haunted and plagued by the death dates -- for you see, she has seen Spider's. Can she change the date or influence these numbers in any way? The story is part adventure, part love story, part paranormal -- but most of the time, it is simply unbelievable.

The book started off strong, bogged down in the middle, and then whimpered toward an unsatisfying predictable ending.

My husband was diagnosed with inoperable Pancreatic Cancer 6 months 3 weeks and 4 days ago. He was given 3 to 6 months to live. He has ask me the question "How Many days do you think I have left?" a hundred times.
This book has made me wonder - would I tell him if I knew? I have to admit there are many times I wished I did know for myself. But to have that knowledge for everyone . . . . . . . Wow! What an enormous burden, especially for a little girl. It is a book with an incredibly interesting premise, the characters are fleshed out, the pace is good (lags a tad in the middle) and one I would suggest reading.
There are few new ideas but the storyline in this book is one I haven't read before and I am glad I did.