The Impossible Knife of Memory -

Laurie Halse Anderson

Speak

2015

416 páginas

13h 52m

ISBN-13: 9780147510723

For the past five years, Hayley Kincaid and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own. Will being back home help Andy’s PTSD, or will his terrible memories drag him to the edge of hell, and drugs push him over? The Impossible Knife of Memory is Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down.

Resenhas (2)

4 (Muito bom)

The book is narrated in the first person by Hayley Rose, a teenage girl who carries in the back the weight of the world. She and her father Andy spent years on the road, clinging to nothing and no one else so that the father could escape the demons that followed him in his mind: the horrors witnessed during the war.

Andy has plunged into alcohol and drugs and spends much of the fear trapped in deep depression or paranoia, where he believes something or someone is behind him. After a more serious incident on the road, Andy decides to go home and have his daughter graduate from high school.

For Hayley, attending Belmont is a nightmare. First because she can not keep an eye on her father so often and then because the place is filled with teenagers and she is not a fan of crowds.

Trying desperately to hold on, Hayley juggles keeping a middle schoolgirl and keeping her father alive. Because that's what she does. It is Hayley who takes care of the house, of the finances and who twists with all her forces so that the father has a good period and can keep the clear mind.

At school, the protagonist meets Finn, an intelligent young man and let's say insistent on having his friendship. For Haylely, it is very difficult to let anyone approach, but Finn manages to break their barriers and to know his story tries to make the girl understand that she can not carry the world by herself.

The story was written with great sensitivity and the author dealt with issues such as disorders and addictions in a delicate but at the same time shocking way.

The construction of the characters is very well done and each of them conquers the reader with his unique charisma.