Pucker [Kindle Edition]

Melanie Gideon (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up Thomas Quicksilver (born Thomas Gale) has lived half his 17 years with burn scars that earned him the nickname Pucker. However, neither the scars nor the change in his name is as traumatic as his adventures in the alternative world of Isaura, his birth home. There, Seers hold political power and failed or ruined humans immigrate only to become servants, or Changed, with no personal will. Thomas, who fled Isaura in childhood with his widowed mother, has adapted well to life in contemporary America. However, Serena is losing her life force and sends him on a mission to restore her Seerskin. Once Thomas returns to his homeland purportedly as one of the Changed he must avoid being identified by the natives, fight to keep alive his own will to find the Seerskin and return to Earth, become accustomed to his newly invoked movie-star good looks, and cope with other Changed ones, including a feisty girl with whom he falls in love. Gideon's many characters are nuanced and credible. None is perfect, and even those with major flaws are shown to have positive attributes. The parallel world, with its adherence to late-19th-century technology, offers much to ponder, not only by readers, but also by Thomas. The only shortcoming of this fascinating novel is its abrupt ending, which, at least, comes after he has re-immigrated to Earth and is living with both his recovering mother and his returned keloid scars. Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 8-11. With his face hideously scarred by a childhood fire, 17-year-old Thomas Quicksilver has been cruelly nicknamed "Pucker" by his classmates. But Tom knows that his scars are not the only things that make him an outsider. In fact, he and his mother, Serena, are actually exiles from another world, Isaura, where both of his parents were Seers. Now, to save his mother's life, Thomas must endanger his own by returning to Isaura in search of the seerskin that had been flayed from Serena's body. Though filled with contrivance and a premise that is too complicated, Gideon's first novel has enough page-turning moments of suspense, plot twists and turns, and narrative surprises to hold readers' interest to its improbable happy ending. Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 270 KB
• Print Length: 300 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1595140557
• Publisher: Razorbill (May 18, 2006)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001R6OTJE
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #425,064 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite award winner!!!, May 26, 2006

By 

An Avid Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pucker (Hardcover)

Moving, imaginative, and a page turner, this book embodies what YA fantasy novels should be about!

I check the credentials before I buy (who can afford to spend money on a bad book??!!), and found out this one's just been nominated by the American Library Association to be the best YA book of this year, which it deserves to win.

Enough said.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good fantasy, August 23, 2007

By 

terryannlibrarian "terryann" (phoenix) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pucker (Hardcover)

The alternate world in this book (Isaura) is remeniscent of the Irish Faerie world in the New Policeman. Pucker explores the life of a horribly scarred teen and his dying mother.
This is a well written emotionally satisfying book with a look at what it must be like to be tragically disfigured in a world full of beautiful people. Pucker is abused by his fellow man and tested greatly when he must choose between himself being healed and his mother being healed. A good read for fantasy lovers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great tale, May 16, 2007

By 

Kim Baccellia, "YA Books Central reviewer... (Southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pucker (Hardcover)

Imagine having the opportunity to go to a place where your terribly scared face would be magically healed. You have to find something in this world that might help save your mother. But if you come back to Earth, your scars would return. What would you do?

This is the dilemna Thomas Quicksilver, "Pucker", is faced with. Thomas has always been an outsider. He has kept the secrets of his crazy mother, his origins, and the hideous scars on his face a secret.

But his mother asks him to go back to Isaura, an alternate world, where both he and his mother were exiled nine years earlier. Ripped of her Seerskin, which helps her predict the future, she is flooded with predictions. So many that without her Seerskin, she'll go mad.

Thomas goes back with a group of others, who have a variety of problems and is 'changed.' For the first time he receives positive attention to his physical appearance, something he's craved since his accident. While in Isaura, he learns what it is to be desirable and falls in love for the first time. But the clock is ticking. He only has a few days to find his mother's Seerskin or she'll die.

I loved this book! Melanie Gideon does an excellent job of getting inside the head of a teen boy and the anguish he goes through with his scars. The reader will feel Thomas's pain as others call him Pucker when describing his scars. Also you'll feel the joy of his first kiss. Something he'd always fantasized about but never thought would happen to someone like him.

The only part I didn't like about this book is that it ended. I'm hoping for a sequel, which the book hints at.