Customer Reviews

Pucker

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Thomas Quicksilver was born in Isaura, a world that exists parallel to our modern Earth. In Isaura, everything is pre-ordained. Family dinners are dictated weeks in advance, not because anyone wants it to be so, but because a group of fortune tellers called The Seers have predicted what they will be. Each day, the citizens of Isaura visit the Seers to learn what their fate is for that day, and how it can be changed for the better. In Isaura, most of the hard labor is performed by a group of people called the Changed: individuals who were deformed or handicapped in some way on Earth but are made whole when they come to Isaura. Both of Thomas's parents were Seers, but he and his mother were exiled to Earth after the death of his father. Thomas was the one who found his father, lying on the kitchen floor dead and stripped of his Seerskin, a glittering golden membrane that makes it possible for Seers to do their work. His mother had been skinned as well. Thomas, afraid and alone, hid under the sink until he thought he could sense Cook, a woman who had cared for him his whole life, coming. He reached up to grab her, but instead, pulled the curtains out of the kitchen window down upon himself; she wasn't there yet, and the candles that were burning in the kitchen when he found his parents had set the curtains aflame. Thomas was burned to the point of deformity.

On Earth, Thomas's mother can use her precognition even without her Seerskin, and makes a living by telling fortunes. Eventually, she starts to sense everything that is about to happen to everyone near her, to the point where she can't be around people anymore because her head has become so crowded with images of their futures. She tells Thomas she needs him to return to Isaura, disguising himself as a candidate to be Changed, and recover her skin. He reluctantly agrees to do so, but once he is in Isaura he finds himself distracted. It turns out if he hadn't been so severely burned, he would have been stunningly handsome. The Changed girls all want to spend time with him, and he enjoys the attention he's never had. He falls in love with another of the Changed, begins to feel himself at home again in Isaura, and is tempted to forget about saving his mother and just stay there. Thomas is torn between his desire to live a life he's never known and his obligation to help his mother.

This is a book about redemption, though it comes to it in a roundabout way. Melanie Gideon has created a fascinating world, and paints a picture of a society that is apparently serene, but exists only because of a disturbing social structure. The world-building Gideon has done here is Pucker's greatest strength. Even when I was tired of Thomas Quicksilver, I still wanted to see how things would turn out for his world.

Thomas Quicksilver is not a flawless hero, and the flaws he has aren't charming. He is, however, an accurate portrait of a teenage boy. If you put down Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix because you found Harry's behavior obnoxious, you shouldn't read Pucker. If, however, you kept reading either because Harry's teenage antics amused you or because you wanted to see how he would grow through it all, then Pucker will provide you with a similar vision of a young man's growth. Thomas Quicksilver does some things that make him near despicable, not the least of which is dating a set of girls all at the same time, disparaging them while doing it, and pursuing another girl who is the one he actually loves. Still, these conflicting actions made him all the more believable to me. Teenage boys chafe against authority, love being an object of desire, and - especially when denied a "normal" experience, as Thomas has been - might drink too deep once offered life's pleasures. While some of Thomas's actions hurt his likability, they absolutely cemented his plausibility. In a book set in a world so different from our own, we need a foothold to understanding the world. Characters who feel the same things we feel and do things we or people we know might do can be that foothold, and that's how Pucker succeeds.

I would recommend this book to fans of the more recent Harry Potter books and anyone who likes stories where utopias are maintained through dystopian circumstances.

Gold Star Award Winner!

PUCKER is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. And since I've read and reviewed over 250 books since August 2005 alone, I have a lot to compare it to!

The book is probably best described as a contemporary fantasy, but it's so much more than that. The story centers around Thomas Quicksilver, who at seventeen has spent most of his life with only his mother and a few close friends as acquaintances. Burned on the face as a young child, he's known as "Pucker" to his cruel classmates, and his only living relative is his mother, a woman who tells the future for her clients from her bed, where she spends all of her time. But what none of those clients, or his best friend, Patrick, knows, is that Thomas Quicksilver has more in his past than the trauma of a childhood accident.

For Thomas and his mother, Serena, were once Isaurians. They lived in a world where technological advances were not pursued, where every step of a person's life was foretold by the Seers. Not just cataclysmic events such as earthquakes or blizzards, but daily ones such as avoiding a street with a large pothole that could twist an ankle or what a family would have for dinner the following week. For Serena and her husband, William, the calm, patented life of Isaura wasn't enough--they longed for their only child, Thomas, to have a normal life, one filled with love, desire, regret, and the unknown. In return for their wayward thinking, Serena and William were stripped of their Seerskins, the outer layer of skin that allowed them to foretell the future. As William lay dead on the kitchen floor, Serena barely conscious, young Thomas was overwhelmed with grief--and accidentally allowed a fire to rage in their home, burning his face.

Exiled to Earth for their sins, Serena and Thomas began a new life, free from the safety and monotony of Isaura. But Serena, minus her Seerskin, discovers that she can still tell the future on Earth--and the gift, or curse, is much stronger than it ever was in Isaura. Her only hope to save her life, and her sanity, is for Thomas to return to Isaura for her Seerskin, which she hopes will dampen the ability to foretell the future on Earth.

For Thomas, this means entering his homeland as one of the Changed--humans with lives bad enough to be offered a chance of redemption in the land of Isaura. His only goal is to find his mother's Seerskin and return to Earth before she dies, but he's soon sidetracked by his new, healed face--and by the lovely Phaidra, a rebellious girl who knows there's more to the Changed than the Isaurians are letting on.

I know I've made PUCKER sound a lot more complicated than it really is. One of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much is that, although a fantasy, it's easy to follow along and relate to the characters. It is, basically, a story about love, about forgiveness, about identity and the desire to be loved for who and what you are. It is, in a word, simply amazing. Pick up a copy today, and I promise that you'll soon be as involved in the life of Thomas Quicksilver as I was; that you'll be wishing for a happy ending for this unbelievably courageous and brave young man.

Thomas Quicksilver came to Earth from an alternate world called Isaura. In Isaura, there are people called Seers who can predict the future. The Seers help with planning every aspect of life in Isaura, from the daily menu to the weather. Thomas' mother and father were Seers, until one horrible day which left Thomas' father dead and his mother stripped of her Seerskin, the outer layer of skin that allowed her to prophecy. Thomas himself was so badly burned in a fire that the scars on his face will never heal.

Thomas' mother escaped with him to Earth, where she tried to make a new life for them. But life is hard for Thomas, whose peers call him "Pucker" because of the disfiguring scars he bears. And on top of everything, Thomas' mother is dying. The only way to save her is for Thomas to return to Isaura and retrieve her seerskin. To return to Isaura, Thomas must become one of the Changed: humans with disabilities of various types who are taken to Isaura and cured of their disabilities. In return, they agree to serve the Isaurans for the rest of their life.

But Thomas doesn't anticipate how being Changed will affect him. Now, he is not only unscarred, but beautiful: girls compete for his attention. If he returns to Earth, he will have to give all this up; his scars will return and all will be as it was before. But if he doesn't return to Earth with his mother's skin, she will die. While Thomas hides his identity and searches for his mother's seerskin, he wrestles with his anger and bitterness and tries to come to terms with the decision he must make.

Pucker is the kind of book that stays with you long after you finish it. The story is exciting and moving, and the fantasy world and the characters, both human and Isauran, are well developed. I felt a lot of emphathy for Thomas. He has so much pain. Even when he acted despicably, I still felt for him and wanted him to learn to come to terms with his past and his present. Pucker surprised me, not once, but multiple times.

His mother is dying; his father is dead. His face was disfigured in a fire. Not much else can go wrong for Thomas Quicksilver a.k.a. Pucker. Alas, the worst is yet to come. His mother tells him that the only way he can save her is to return to Isaura, the world they were banished from on the day of the fire and his father's death. When he returns to the world of his birth, his scars are removed, and he becomes the handsome boy he would have been if the fire hadn't occurred. He falls in love. Things are definitely looking up. Unfortunately, his mother will die without her seer skin, a special second skin that many people in Isaura develop when they reach their teens that allows them to see into the future, and he still has to recover it before time runs out. If Thomas is to save his mother, he must find what he came for and return to her on Earth, losing his new face and breaking his heart in the process. What will he decide?

Pucker is the story of a boy who is judged by his blemished cover. In this brilliantly written novel, readers will discover the pain that people go through when they are ridiculed because of their appearance, and the joy they feel when they finally realize that somebody really does care about them. Melanie Gideon has created a novel that will teach readers to look beyond the skin to the heart beneath. Pucker's story is truly one that teens and adults can learn from and enjoy.

Reviewed by a student for Flamingnet Book Reviews
www.flamingnet.com
Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations

I felt like it started off a bit slow but curiosity for the story is strong motivation to keep going. The pace does pick up quickly. You learn about Thomas aka Pucker, the world he is from and the events that lead to his mother and his exile. Then he goes back. I was nervous the whole time. Will he be discovered? I knew it was a matter of time but not when or how it would unfold and that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Thomas as a character... at first he got on my nerves. His mom is sick from her visions, couldn't he be a little more sympathetic? Then I thought, wouldn't I be the same if I were in his shoes? When I realized that, I sympathized with him much more. Teenage life with scars all over you face isn't the smoothest sailing. When he gets his face fixed back on Isaura I have to admit, I was glad he had fan girls. Felt like he deserved a break.

Then there was Phaindra. I still have no idea how to say her name. I really didn't get to know much about her, but she was one tough cookie in her scenes. Mysterious and focused to remain true to herself for reasons later revealed. When something happens to her, I did feel bad for her, crossed my fingers later in the story that everything would turn out okay for her.

The rest of the cast were nice additions. Patrick was Thomas' best and only friend, knew Thomas since he came to Earth and knew the person behind the scars. Cook, I was surprised when she popped up again and her role in everything. Other characters helped round out the story, give the plot depth and personality. A story can have a great plot but if there is no personality to any of it, where's the motivation to continue reading?

If you're looking for a book with a supernatural twist but don't want vampires or werewolves, give Pucker a shot. It gets 4.5 stars from me.

I had really high hopes for this book. It started out really well and was engrossing at the beginning, but as the book continued it began to loose steam. Gideon's world of Isaura was belivable. I believed in it. The rigidness and strict society. The preordained world that everyone there lived in. I believed it all and because I was such a fevor believer in that world, I could not believe in the end of the book. The ending of the book was the pin to the balloon and not in a good way. Or like the child who truely believes in Santa and someone comes along and tells you that Santa is not real and does not exist.

To the actual review... the book was written well. Enough that I believed the dual worlds of "our" earth and that of Isaura. I believed the situation that Thomas aka Pucker was in. That's an achievement there. To have a believable world and characters. Most of the important characters were round...enough. I would have liked to get to know the uncle better, but that's beside the relevance of the story and point of the story. Gideon touches upon many subjects many people go through in their lives: personal image, self esteem, judgment of yourself and from your peers, being yourself, the restraints of society, and the list can go on but they all are similar and it goes in a circle. And she does a great job in incorporating these details into the story without being didactic.

But again, like I said before, as the story went on, the story lost its strong push forward and became harder to tread. Pucker became unlikable. Yes, I understood his swooning over the new "thing" he received, drunk with its possibilities, but I don't think it should have lasted as long as it did. His mother is dying. I believe that would kick in sooner or later, which would motivate Pucker more, but it doesn't and Pucker becomes selfish and arrogant. As a reader I no longer sympathize or wanted to understand why he decides to delay his rescuing of his dying mother. Pucker's relationship with his mother wasn't rocky. He did not hate his mother, more so the position they were placed in so I believed that he would be more driven to save his mother instead of wanting to get into the girl populace's pants/skirts. I believed Pucker's relectance to leave back to "our" world but I also believe the drive to save someone close to you would be stronger too.

The character buidling was also strong to start with but like I said as the story progressed, certain personality traits didn't seemed appropriate or the personality lost steam. Each character was different enough to tell the difference but they were static. The characters made good first impressions but they don't go beyond that... no more depth to the characters. Only two or three of the characters grew to be more real like.

Gideon builds good tension. She knows to to subtly stack moments upon moments and details upon details. And she knocks it all down for the reader with her ending. Anticlimatic. I get what she was trying to say but with all that build up I just don't think the ending matched the mood or tone of the story. This was the most disappointing factor for me. If the ending was reworked a bit I would have greatly enjoyed the story. But I can't bring myself to like it. I loved Gideon's world of Isaura. I initially cared about Pucker. But then the potential Gideon created for Isaura was never fully used and Pucker just became someone I, as a reader, disliked...[SPOILER] disliked enough that I hoped his mother would die and that he would learn his lesson that way. I would have liked to see that version. Maybe then Pucker would be humanizing once more. [END OF SPOILER]

Gideon does link her details well together. The pieces fits and comes together well. Just in my opinion, not how it should. With that aside, the book was good.

Verdict:

Check it out from the library. It's worth a read, just not to own. Like I said, I really liked Isaura. The book is simple to read. I wouldn't quite toss this book aside. There's something here in Gideon's book. It just lost it's way as it came to an end, slightly.

His mother is dying, but Pucker wants to stay gorgeous and have a string of girls throw themselves at him. He wants to live happily ever after as a mindless slave, and did I mention his mother is dying? Okay, I can understand the selfishness and conceit that overtakes him, I can see how he would be angry at his parents, I know I'm not suppose to like him because the author makes him unlikeable. But I thought he would do something bigger and more selfless at the end. After all, the Isaurian society is grossly unfair and rigid. Pucker's own father died rebelling against it. I wanted Pucker to do more, and he didn't.