Customer Reviews

Wonder When You'll Miss Me

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved "Wonder When You'll Miss Me" by Amanda Davis. I was heading to Amazon.com to write a rave review of this debut novel from a wonderfully clever and talented author who has a great career ahead of her. I was going to say how I was looking forward to next book. Sadly, there won't be another book. I was shocked and saddened to read that Ms. Davis was tragically killed (along with her parents) in a plane crash in March 2003.

Luckily, we all had the opportunity to read this amazing book before her untimely death. Her characters are well rounded, deep and fully engaged. Her plot and story is well crafted and really interesting. I found her work really interesting and couldn't put it down. I loved it.

"Davis has created a lucid, compelling page-turner that defies categorization.
This is a stunning novel and Faith's story is uncomfortably tragic, brutally
honest and beautifully rendered. It is about pain and rebirth and the reality
behind all illusions. WONDER WHEN YOU'LL MISS ME is, quite simply, a great
novel."
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

In this brave and honest novel, Amanda Davis exposes the underbelly of the all-American obsession with popularity. Faith Buckle, overweight and lacking in high-school popularity, pays a horrible price for that crime; this will eventually land her in the circus. In less sure hands, this material could devolve into the land of 'just another American girl interrupted story.' But that's not what happens here. Ms. Davis's work is so consistently sensitive, funny, sad and occasionally horrifying - always nailing the appropriate emotional mark - that readers will read this book rooting for its unusual heroine, while at the same time rooting for the author to write more books.

I am astonished at the quality of Amanda Davis's prose. I'm overwhelmed by the at once harrowing and compelling story. I'm so excited that I found this young writer at the beginning of what is destined to be a remarkable career.
You can read the PW excerpt for the plot summary. What I want to tell you is that you must buy this book.

This is the sort of book you can get lost in - a great story, told very well, with fully fleshed-out characters and moment after moment of heartbreaking grandeur.

One last time(sorry about this)

This was my favorite book this year, lyrical and beautiful and funny. It's stayed with me since I read it a few weeks ago. It's one of those books that makes you excited for the author's next book, kind of like Harry Potter does for kids....
There will be no more, but it's a book I'll never forget. Thanks Amanda.

once you meet faith duckle and they ghost of her formerly fat self, you won't want to stop reading this book.

funny, thrilling, poignant, this rags-to-riches of the psyche tale takes the reader on an intimate tour of depression, survival, suburban angst and circus antics. faith duckle is a haunted girl physically abused by cruel high schoolers and psychically scarred by parents who don't care, depression and a stint in a loony bin. faith is accompanied and goaded by her alter-ego "fat girl" as she takes revenge, then hits the road in search of love, identity and the highwire.

I finally picked up this book when it came out in paperback. I wish I wouldn't have waited so long! Amanda Davis conveys more in a paragraph than others do in entire novels. The book is engrossing from the first few pages and has left me captivated long after the end. Rarely do characters capture my imagination more than the ones in this novel. The author's richly addicting story creates entire worlds-within-worlds where anything is possible. I highly recommend this book to those who like coming-of-age stories, and also to anyone who has an appreciation for beautifully-rendered prose.

This is a book that begins with the revelation of a horrible event in a young girl's life. The details unfold as the novel progresses, and the reader is able to feel the pain and to understand the fragmentation of her personality to include "the fat girl." Joining the circus is an effort to belong somewhere after commiting an act of violence herself. This book has several levels, but it does come together at the end when the adolescent "coming of age" evolves and the dual personality is merged. I did have a little trouble keeping all the circus characters straight once they began to interact with "Annabelle." This is a book that would do well in sequel form. I am interested in finding out how Faith's life continues to evolve.

Most people have conversations with themselves, luckily those conversations are usually silent, internal events. Our interior voices don't disturb us for the most part, and are simply an aspect of the normal thought process. They don't need to have a name. They certainly don't have their own distinct personality. They are at one with us, integrated.

Not so for Faith Dunkle, sixteen years old and troubled by the various ebbings and flowings of her exceptionally tumultuous stretch of the ocean of life. Her invisible, separate secondary persona has manifested as a fat girl who follows her, trailing beside or behind her almost constantly, from her suburban high school life to a road trip to the big top of a traveling circus.

This is a great story, written with a tender, poignant voice. Davis is straightforward, and gives us an enjoyable, flowing read.