From Where I Stand [Hardcover]

Tabitha Suzuma (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2007

Raven is a deeply disturbed teenager, who, after witnessing the death of his mother, is placed in foster care. The Russells do their best to earn his trust, but only little Ella manages to get through to him. Meanwhile, at school, bullies are making his life a living hell. An unexpected companion comes in the form of Lotte, a classmate bored by her 'ordinary' friends. Together, they track down Raven's mum's killer, with the goal of exposing him to the police. But their carefully crafted plan goes dangerously wrong and suddenly nothing is as it seems. Everything is falling apart and, ultimately, there is only one, final way out.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Raven is a deeply disturbed teenager. After witnessing the detah of his mother and living in a children's home, he's now been placed in foster care. His new family, the Russells, do their best to earn his trust but it's going to take a long time.

Meanwhile, at school, bullies are making Raven's life a living hell. And then an unexpected saviour comes in the form of Lotte, a classmate bored by her 'ordinary' friends. Together, they set out to track down Raven's mum's killer, in order to expose him to the police. But their carefully crafted plan goes dangerously wrong and suddenly nothing is as it seems. Everything is falling apart, and ultimately there is only one, final, way out.

A page-turning psychological thriller from the highly acclaimed author of A Note of Madness. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Tabitha Suzuma was born in 1975 and lives in London. She has always loved writing and would regularly get into trouble at the French Lycee for writing stories instead of listening in class. She used to work as a primary school teacher and now divides her time between writing and tutoring. Her first novel, A Note of Madness was published to great critical acclaim.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bodley Head (May 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0370329066
• ISBN-13: 978-0370329062
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,628,207 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of potential, but....., May 17, 2008

By 

Elin "maverick" (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Where I Stand (Hardcover)

It didn't really work out. After reading a lot of really positive reviews from the amazon.co.uk site, I decided to buy the book despite my 'grown-up' age of 20. I've read several "young-adult" books and they haven't let me down so far but this one has.

From where I stand tells the story of Raven, a disturbed 14 year old boy who finds himself crawling through the days after he witnessed his mother's murder. He closed himself off completely and the new foster family he's placed with find it hard to penetrate the barrier he's built around himself. Raven is most content at night, when he's left alone in his room, with only his thoughts to accompany him. And then there's the reason his arms look like he got into a fight with an insane and very sharp clawed cat.

The new school he goes to seems not so bad at the beginning, but the boys who befriend him at first stab him in the back later for no good reason. The only person he likes is Lotte, a girl his age who got bored with her soap-watching friends and found herself drawn to this still, mysterious boy. He confides in her and together they try to bring his moms killer to justice.

Reading the plot outline above makes it sound pretty good, doesn't it? And that's exactly why I'm so frustrated. Raven, Lotte and the other characters all had potential. The problem I'm having is that they don't seem like real people.

You don't really get to know Raven, and I sometimes found it hard to sympathize with him because we don't get inside his head to see what he's really thinking. It was probably the author's intention to keep us at arms length, like Raven keeps all the others at a distance, so not to spoil the ending. Still, it was something I missed.

Also, the foster family seems like your typical well meaning 2-dimensional family: Jackie is the concerned mother, Dan is the big guy with the heart at the right place and Ella is just your plain sweet-but-oh-so-annoying-at-times 5-year old.

The same goes for Raven's classmates. The 2 boys (Kyle and Brett) are stereotype bullies who only seem to befriend people in order to pick out their weaknesses and use it against them for fun. Both Lotte and Raven seem naive at some times and suddenly smart at others. Maybe that's the way 14-year olds are, but the way they switched from one to the other left me unconvinced. I also put a big questionmark at "the BIG twist" of the story. Again, it empathizes that we don't really know the main character.

So that's the downside of the book. The upside is that this review is written by a spoiled 20 year-old bookwurm who probably demands too much from some books. I'm sure many 14/15 year olds will like it and maybe it takes a teenager to empathize with the teenage main character.
The sentences are well constructed and there is an eye for detail, which I appreciate. It's just that you never get stand where he stands. You're a bystander viewing the drama to unfold.

If you don't have any problem with that you should get it from your local library or buy it second hand here, so you can see if it suits you.