Customer Reviews

Turnabout

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

One injection and you begin to grow younger, year by year. What a great idea for a book! (It may, however, not be a topic of great interest to youngsters, but give it to anyone over 21 and it should find a huge audience.) The author thinks of everything including losing the memories you had when you were older, as you continue to grow younger. Can anyone stop this "unaging" process and what will happen when the protagonists are back to diapers? A fascinating idea, a very easy read and one that will surely make a great motion picture! A definite recommendation!

In this book, the two main characters start out as old ladies and, though the miracles of science, gradually grow younger, instead of older. When they are in their teens, they realize that they will soon have to find someone to take care of them when they get too young to live by themselves. While I found this idea intriguing, the only students I have had read it, found it less so. The story wasn't quite compelling enough to make them care about them. The students have liked Running Out of Time and Among the Hidden better.

Still, if you like exploring the ideas, the book is worthwhile.

It was the year 2000, and Amelia was living in a nursing home. She was sick and had given up on her life. She was content to let her sons make all of the decisions for her, and she was ready to die. Then the doctors at the nursing home had her sign something. She wasn't quite sure what it was she was signing, but she signed anyway. Things began to change. One day she finds she doesn't need her hearing aid anymore. Amelia can swing her legs over the side of her bed again. Some people who live in the nursing home can walk again instead of being confined to wheelchairs. Amelia learns that what she signed was an agreement to participate in a study of an experimental drug that would reverse the effect of aging. Everyone at the nursing home has taken the drug, and they are all growing younger every day.

Things seem wonderful--it's a second chance at life! Then, on her first birthday back in time, Amelia realizes that she can't remember the last year of her life growing older. The nursing home residents realize that once they start growing younger, their memories of growing older disappear; they are rewritten with the new memories of growing younger. One man is afraid of forgetting his beloved wife's funeral where so many people said such nice things, and he is the first to request the Cure, the drug that will halt his age at that exact moment. The Cure has worked wonderfully in lab mice. But when this man takes the Cure, he immediately shrivels up and dies.

Amelia decides not to stick around very long in this place with the doctors and the other old people getting young. It is too frantic, too upsetting. Instead she and a friend, Anny Beth, decide to go off and live their lives together, experiencing the world a second time as they both grow younger and younger. However, they then get toward the end of their new lives. Amelia, now calling herself Melly, is sixteen and still growing younger. Anny Beth is eighteen. Soon they will not be able to live on their own. What will happen when they are toddlers again? They will need someone to take care of them. Thus begins the search for someone they can trust with their story and their lives.

I loved the whole idea of moving backward in time, and I thought the author did a good job of showing the potential problems with this sort of medical advance. I would have liked to see what things were like even more in the future, when Melly and Anny Beth were almost done with their lives.

Wow! Normally the thought of science fiction makes me want to fall asleep, but Turnabout had me hanging on the edge of my seat. I couldn't put it down! I absolutely had to know what would happen. I don't really know excactly why; maybe it was the fact that it was by one of my favorite authors, or maybe because it was kind of like realistic fiction in the future, but whatever the reason is, I still loved this book.

Turnabout wasn't too hard or too easy to read, which was really nice. What I really liked about the authors style of writing was how she went back and forth between 2001 and 2085. Also, it was such an original idea. I mean, I actually felt like I was reading a realistic fiction book. That's how good it was!

The book is about two old people, Amelia and Annie Beth, living in a nursing home, along with for forty eight other old people, just waiting to die, until they were given what would seem the chance of a lifetime. Two scientists are telling them that they could actually unage. As in, every year go back a year instead of going forward a year, and that when they were ready, they could choose to be a certain age for the rest of their life. The project's called "Project Turnabout", and they are going to be the fifty participants who get to try it out. There were some problems though, because it wasn't exactly legal, since it had only been tested on rats and monkeys, so they weren't sure it was safe for humans. After six years, Amelia and Annie Beth are fed up with the agency, so they leave. They never tell anyone about "Project Turnabout", but just live their life. When Annie Beth's 18 and Amelia's 16, in year 2085, they realize that somebody si trying to get a hold of them, and she's a reporter. They're also starting to realize that it'll only be a couple of years before they won't be able to take care of themselves on thier own. But who can take care of them? Who can they trust? Doesn't that sound really good?

Margaret Peterson Haddix never fails to deliver, it seems. This book is a perfect example of a compelling tale that has universal appeal written in Haddix's own style that draws you in until you realize that you have finished the book before you can even put it down!

A group of senior citizens in a nursing home are presented the chance to participate in an experiment that may extend their life. Most of them, not knowing what they are signing agree to participate. What they don't know that the experiment is to inject them with the fountain of "un-aging," meaning that as each year passes they will physically be one year old less.

Sounds good? However, like the tale of the Monkey's Paw there is a catch. For each year the person de-ages, they lose one year of their memories from the time before they began the experiment. Meaning that new memories are overwriting old memories like a video tape machine does. On top of that there is no guarantee that the process can be stopped, therefore it is possible that subjects will de-age until they become a fetus and then nothing.

The book centers around two of the subjects who have reached the age that they are no longer adults and need someone to care for them. On top of that they feel they no longer can trust the agency that created the secret experiment and has sheltered them all the years that they were getting younger.

I totally enjoyed the book though I felt that there were a few loose ends left in the end. However, the author may be waiting to see if there is a demand for a sequel. I for one hope so.

Turnabout was a great book. It was about this group of elderly people who are in this experiment to reverse aging. They have to start new lives and leave their old behind. Two woman, Melly and Anny Beth leave the agency and live normal lives (with the exception of running away from the truth). The project is supposed to be secret but someone knows too much. The girls eventually get into thier teens and they have to find someone to take care of them when they get younger. This person has to keep the secret. Read the book to find out what happens next. This is a REALLY good book. I read it in 2 days and couldn't put it down. I highly reccommend this book to people of all ages!

Turnabout By: Margaret Haddix

Always make sure you know what you are signing because you may be signing your life away! In Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix, residents at a home for the elderly could have used this advice when they signed a paper agreeing to participate in a new study. Upon signing up, they received an injection that would cause their internal clocks to tick backwards, making them grow younger instead of older. This story follows two girls and tells of the problems they face in society as they get younger and younger. The book starts off in the present, but jumps to eighty-five years later soon after. The two main characters are faced with many problems. How can you explain to your husband why you are getting younger when he is still getting older? The home for the elderly is able to track the two girls anyplace that they go by using the new advancements that they have with computers. But, there is another curve thrown into the road when the girls discover that there is a newspaper reporter searching for them. Fearing for their lives they cut themselves off from society and fend for themselves in the woods. This was a quick read that really kept me on my toes until the very last page. I normally don't enjoy science-fiction novels because they tend to be too futuristic and not realistic at all, but in Turnabout it was more like a realistic fiction with a small scientific element. I could not put this book down because on every page there was a new problem and more questions that needed to be resolved. My only regret about this book is that there is no definite ending. Even after I finished the last sentence, there was no real resolution. I was left hanging with tons of unanswered questions. But, maybe it is better that way because it was up to me to determine what happens and to make the book end in whatever way I chose. I didn't feel that this book was as strong as Margaret's first book, Among the Hidden. I would recommend this book to anyone. It is a little confusing in the beginning, but once I got into it things ironed themselves out. If you want to try a book with a topic that hasn't been done before, I highly recommend Turnabout!

In this book two old ladies who live at a retirement home agree to be in an experiment where they are given something that makes them turn a year younger on their birthday, instead of a year older. Throughout the book they are getting younger and younger and are back in their late teens, and they have flashbacks about when they agreed to do this experiment. They realize that they will need someone to take care of them soon because they will be to young to take care of themselves. They have been writing diaries since when they started the un-aging process and now they have boxes of diaries. They try to find one of their relatives who might be able to take care of them, and they have to keep travelling like they have been doing for years, in order to keep their secret, because if they stay in one place too long someone will notice they are looking more childish. Back when they agreed to take the injection, they had no idea that they would soon need someone to help them, and no idea that they wouldnt be able to lead normal lives like they had the first time they were young. Now they are in trouble because people that they have lived around are becoming suspicious and they have to find a way to get out of this whole mess. To find out what happens to them, read the book! It is really good!!

"Do you want †o be younger?" Two old aged women, Anny Beth and Melly do not have enough time before they leave all their loved ones and enter the Ga†es of heaven. Just in luck doctors wanted †o see if their experiment could turn back the age of us humans. Unfortunitly a li†tle test became an illigle test. Knowing this information both girls ran for help. Now enterin g the year of 2085 the girls who were tested changed into teens. Seems fun a† first but to them is it? As lucky as they are to be young again, the process won't end. Faster and faster †ime has past but their age has decreased rapidly. Will anyone help the girls or will it be to late to ask?
This book at first was hard for me because the entry went form 2000, to the next entry at 2085. Margaret Peterson Haddix did a wonderful job and has a good message. You have one life to live enjoy it as long as you can. You should read Turn About because this book will spreed your way of thinking about life and know that we always have a choice.

Amelia is a 185 year old in a 15 year old's body. How did this happen? Back in the year 2001 Amelia and 49 other nursing home residents were asked to participate in scientific breakthrough. This would take them back to the physical state of the average 20 year old. In other words, they would be given a shot that would allow them to unage to 20 or so and then be given a second shot that would stop them from aging, or unaging, any further. Unfortunatly problems occur with those who were given the second shot. They all die instantly.
We meet up with Anne Beth and Amelia, who has changed her name to Melly, in the year 2085. They haven't taken a shot for fear they would get killed. Now they are faced with the problem of finding a gaurdian to take care of them.
I enjoyed this book very thoroughly because it taught me a lot about, believe it or not, growing up. I think it was an excellent and informative read. Pick it up at your nearest library and get ready for the adventure of a lifetime.