Customer Reviews

Would You

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

 

 

Natalie is forever hanging onto her older sister Claire. At times they can be the best of friends, even though Claire is older and has her own friends. One night changes a lot of things. When Claire is in an accident things start to look different from Natalie's point of view. Her friends game of Would You Rather? takes on a different feel as they try to figure out how to cope.

I didn't love this main character. The whole time I really wanted to feel bad or her having to go through all these things, but I just couldn't. At one point Natalie's father cries and she is completely insensitive saying he shouldn't be able to cry. Natalie did not strike me as a sixteen year old. Her and her friends seemed 12 or 13 not almost high school juniors. I liked the Would You Rather? question but that was just about it. I didn't really seem like Natalie was all that upset about her sister, so how could I as the reader be? Natalie was just very juvenile and insensitive, maybe she was in shock, but all in all I didn't like her or her story.

First Lines:
"Would you rather know what's going to happen? Or not know?"

Favorite Lines:
"Picture of neglect. Plenty of dust bunnies. Dust antelopes, actually."

"Would you rather know what's going to happen or not know?" This is the question that starts the powerful story that is WOULD YOU.

Natalie is Claire's younger sister. Claire has just graduated from high school and she's ready to begin the next chapter of her life. She has told Natalie that she is going to break up with her boyfriend, Joe, that night.

But that night, everything changes.

Nat and her friends sit around at the Ding Dong Diner discussing "would you" questions with each other. Little does Natalie know that the opening question would hit so close to home.

As Natalie is riding her bike home one night during the summer, she passes cops putting up police tape on Devon Road. She doesn't think anything of it until she gets home. There she finds out that her sister has been in an accident. She is still alive, but the doctors aren't very optimistic.

WOULD YOU tells the story of Nat's family over the course of a week during one summer. It explores the turmoil that Nat goes through, as well as the despair and struggles of her parents. Nat feels guilty for some of the thoughts that go through her head. Her friends have a hard time with the situation as well, and constantly stop themselves from saying the wrong things.

WOULD YOU is a short story that holds a powerful punch. Long after the cover has been closed, the reader will be pondering the opening question...would you rather know or not? Would it change anything?

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

This book Would You, by Marthe Jocelyn is and intriguing story about the life of a teenage girl, Natalie, whose life is turned upside down when her sister Claire is hit by a car and is in the hospital in a coma. Natalie thought she was going to have a fun summer with her sister and friends before her sister goes off to college in the fall, but that all changes in the blink of an eye. Everything changes for Natalie and her family when Claire is declared brain dead and taken off life support. Natalie and Claire both have a lot of friends, but Natalie's favorite thing to do with her friends is go pool hopping. Which is when you sneak over to someone's house and jump in the pool, then run away before you get caught, Natalie and her friends never imagined when they rode there bikes past a car accident one night after doing that, that it would involve Claire.
Jocelyn has written a lot of other books, including the series about "Hannah's Collections" which is based on her daughter Hannah. "Would You" was very good, but there is one thing that I would change, after Claire went into her coma it went on and on about how sad everyone was and I thought that was a little boring. Overall it was a very good book that i recommend to everyone.

It's the summer before junior year, and as Natalie endures the start of the year's first heat wave, she says, "Summer just started and it's already boring." She thinks ahead to a long, lazy summer, lifeguarding at the YMCA, sneaking into absent neighbors' backyards to use their pools late at night, and just spending time with her friends at the Ding-Dong diner. Natalie has smart friends who tease each other gently, engage in harmless flirtations and challenge each other with hypothetical, and sometimes gross, moral dilemmas (for example: "Would you rather eat a rat with the fur still on or eat sewage straight from the pipe?").

Natalie's summer will be fine, she guesses, but she knows that at the end of it, her beautiful, brilliant older sister Claire will be off to college. Claire is embracing her future, telling Natalie at the opening of the book, "I have this roar in my head...of anticipation. That it's all just starting. Stuff I don't even know about." As for Natalie, when she imagines Claire leaving for school, she feels sick to her stomach.

Claire's future is bright, and her summer is sure to be glorious --- until one second changes things for Claire and her entire family forever. Returning home from a late-night swimming party, Natalie sees police cruisers and ambulances in a nearby neighborhood. She doesn't connect these sirens and flashing lights with herself until she returns home to find her mother and father nearly hysterical with fear and worry. Claire, they say, has been hit by a car, has a severe head injury and is in a coma.

Over the next several days, Natalie and her family face moral and ethical dilemmas far more strenuous than anything her friends had cooked up before. She feels guilt over "borrowing" Claire's new black blouse and assuming that Claire's shiny new Apple laptop will be hers soon. She clashes with her mother over the state of her (and Claire's) room and with her father over the possibility of Claire's emergence from the coma and the ability to seek revenge. She feels uncomfortable when she is asked to massage Claire's nearly unrecognizable feet, and finds unexpected moments of grace and clarity when she speaks to her unresponsive sister in the lonely hospital room. After a brain scan reveals the worst possible outcome, Natalie and her parents must answer the most difficult questions of all.

There certainly have been plenty of other young adult novels about death and dying, but many of them are unbearably angst-ridden or nauseatingly maudlin and sentimental. WOULD YOU is neither of the above. It is, instead, a realistic, thoughtful exploration of the kinds of tough choices --- and the painful thoughts --- that run through people's heads during moments of tragedy. Although Natalie inevitably compares herself negatively to her golden older sister, readers will recognize her as a bright, articulate, contemplative girl forced to move into a new kind of future before she feels entirely ready.

As Natalie says near the book's close, the ending is "nowhere near happy," but she does, with the help of her remarkably perceptive and supportive friends and family, find a measure of hope, a way of looking peacefully at a future that no longer has Claire in it.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

I've never heard of this author before and this was just amazing very interesting, thoughtful and touching probably one of my favorite books ever!

I was hesitant to start this book, but as it progressed it became absolutely incredible, and it is a tear jerker in a major way. I read it in one night, it is an easy read, but sends out a powerful message. I would recommend this book to any Middle School or High School girl, since it deals with many differently "weighted" issues.

First I have to say that I love the cover of this book. Once you have read the storyline, you will understand about the cover - which, in my opinion, has two meanings.

This YA book starts off with the "Would you" game. Natalie and some of her friends get together and play this game of "would you". I have to say that I had never heard of this before (I guess it was a little after my time as a YA) and that some of the questions (and answers) were pretty disgusting. Yet, I thought it was an interesting way to start a book - throughout the various answers to varied questions sprinkled in the book, you also get some insight into the minds of these teenagers.

The other interesting thing these kids do is pool-hopping, which, frankly, I don't see the point in, but it is an integral part of the story. Basically, these YA are all just doing their thing (with a surprising minimal (read: none) amount of drunks, boozing, etc.).

Yet, you know somehow, behind the under-current of the words that there is a countdown of some type going on - and when it occurs - its a biggie. Natalie is called home one night to be told that her sister (and best friend) Claire, who was weeks away from leaving for college has been hit by a car and is in a coma.

From this point, Natalie's life takes a dramatic change - gone are the joys of being young and free. Natalie is brought to her sister's bed and after some time, her family is told that there is nothing they can do for Claire - that she is brain dead and being kept alive by machines.

Natalie feels lost and cannot turn to anybody. Her mother is hysterical and her dad is being stoic "for the family". The most revealing parts of Natalie are spent when she is alone or when is alone talking to her sister.

I loved the way the author wrote about Natalie's fears (for herself, for her family and for Claire). She managed to honnestly express many feelings that needed to be surfaced - without making Natalie sound whiny or annoying. I also loved the way the author brought all of Natalie's friends in, in various ways, as a support system for Natalie.

Finally, there is the love that Natalie (and the resentment) feels for her sister. How could Claire let this happen?

Finally, a decision must be made and this was one of the saddest chapters I have ever read. I had a clear vision, in my mind, of what Claire looked like lying in that bed - it was all very, very sad.

At the same time, Natalie finds strength in the end.

This is not a "light,witty read" be warned - but it is a story that needed to be told.

Marthe Jocelyn's WOULD YOU tells of an older sister injured by a car, and four days in which Natalie and her family wait to learn if Claire will ever recover. A heartbreaking story of sudden changes will attract middle school readers. An excellent leisure read for middle school readers.