Author: Julia Hoban
Publisher: Speak (Penguin)
Genre: YA
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Speak (Penguin)
Genre: YA
Paperback: 336 pages
ISBN: 0142416665
Summary from Goodreads:Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, sixteen year- old Willow’s parents died in a horrible car accident. Willow was driving. Now her older brother barely speaks to her, her new classmates know her as the killer orphan girl, and Willow is blocking the pain by secretly cutting herself. But when one boy—one sensitive, soulful boy—discovers Willow’s secret, it sparks an intense relationship that turns the “safe” world Willow has created for herself upside down.
Told in an extraordinary fresh voice, Willow is an unforgettable novel about one girl’s struggle to cope with tragedy, and one boy’s refusal to give up on her.
Julia Hoban's Willow is the story of a teenage girl who has turned to cutting as a means of avoiding the intense grief and pain she feels regarding her parents' tragic death. Willow takes the first few steps out of her emotionally-guarded comfort zone as she begins to let Guy, a student who shares her interest in books and anthropology, get to know her. But will these new emotions bring her guilt and heartache flooding to the surface and drive her toward a dangerous breakdown? Or will Guy's interest in her welfare help Willow acknowledge her pain, forgive herself, and make healthier choices?
What I Liked:
- This book is the first full novel I've read about cutting, and I found it both heartbreaking and enlightening. The author treated the subject with an honest realism that helped give me a totally new understanding of the self-destructive behavior that I'd previously associated with reckless desperation rather than as a means of self-preservation.
- I liked that Willow's strained relationship with her brother played such a significant roll in the story. YA novels don't explore teenage protagonists' interactions with their adult siblings very often, and I enjoyed seeing that explored extensively in this book. Since their parents' death, Willow's brother has quietly withdrawn from their former relationship, and neither of them is able to share their pain with the other. Instead, he has silently taken on the roll of her guardian and seemingly left the memory of their parents behind. I found their relationship believable and moving.- This book is the first full novel I've read about cutting, and I found it both heartbreaking and enlightening. The author treated the subject with an honest realism that helped give me a totally new understanding of the self-destructive behavior that I'd previously associated with reckless desperation rather than as a means of self-preservation.
- Guy makes a very compelling and lovable romantic hero. He is an avid reader who truly listens to Willow and desperately wants to help ease her pain and to protect her from her own self-destructive habits. He is protective but not controlling, and the more he gets to know Willow the more he comes to care about her. Their romance is of the slow-building, friendship-based variety, and he really is an endearing character.
- The high school and college campus settings feel realistic, as do the secondary characters who each have their own set of pressures and challenges to deal with. Every moment with David and his wife and daughter felt particularly genuine and relatable, and Willow's classmates and co-workers also had believable dialogue and their own distinct motivations and personalities.
- I enjoyed the allusions to Shakespeare's The Tempest, and I enjoyed all of Guy and Willow's conversations at the library.
- The final sentence of this novel is excellent.
What I Wished:
- I wish this book had been written in a different narrative style because I find third person, present tense very awkward to read. Unless the book is a suspenseful thriller, third person, present tense narratives tend to seem unnatural and distracting to me. I read this book aloud to my husband, and unfortunately that particular narrative style is a little reminiscent of melodramatic Dick and Jane books when read aloud. A few scattered quotes from p. 58 & 59: "Willow closes the book with a sigh."..."..Willow is overcome by a wave of loneliness."..."Willow smiles a little."..."Willow sits up and stares at the other girl in disbelief."..."Willow shakes her head."..."Willow isn't stupid."..."Willow rummages through her bag in search of her library ID." Too much Willow this and Willow that and simply not enough tension to justify the present tense narrative for 336 pages. Plus, the third person point-of-view puts an awkward separation between the reader and the protagonist, almost as if you are hearing a sports reporter calling the shots in a game rather than immersing yourself in a story and getting to know the characters. It may have been intended to reflect Willow's own detachment from her life and emotions, but I think that a first person, present tense narrative would have made this story more of a page-turner.- I wanted the heroine to be more likable. I sympathized with Willow's grief and understood the reasons she pushed people away, but her bitter, pessimistic attitude and her self-absorbed nature occasionally made this book feel like a bit of a chore to read. While I could see that her self-loathing and paranoid nature were critical to telling this story about a grieving girl on a long and difficult journey toward recovery, I was sometimes tempted to set Willow aside just to take a break from her bleak attitude.
- *spoiler ahead* (scoll over the following text to read it) I felt that the story would have been stronger if Guy hadn't expected that their having slept together would make such a sudden difference where Willow's cutting was concerned. After all that he had been through with her, it seemed like an odd assumption for him to make. While I enjoyed the underlying theme about the redemptive nature of opening yourself up to love and felt that Guy and Willow having sex fit comfortably within the context of the story, I was not so receptive to the concept of sex somehow having a disproportionately powerful impact on decreasing Willow's reliance on her self-destructive behavior.
- Overall, I would say that the issue of cutting was handled thoughtfully throughout this book, but choosing to have the healing power of love be the protagonist's primary method for working toward a healthier future seemed to weaken the story a bit for me. I don't mean to imply that authors have any responsibility to make their protagonists roll models because I truly don't believe they are under any obligation to do so. But I personally would have enjoyed this story's conclusion more if Willow had begun to make a wider variety of proactive choices toward leaving cutting behind her. I did feel that the portrayal of her character and her decisions was an honest one, and I appreciated that the changes she chose to make happened gradually and realistically. I am sure there are many cutters out there who could benefit from knowing that they are not alone and reading about a character who shares their compulsion to indulge in self-mutilation as a means of self-preservation, but I felt that having the final hopeful element of this story rely so heavily on stumbling across the perfect boy who will love you and push you toward a healthier lifestyle limited this book's impact. I hope that people struggling with such overwhelming pain won't pin their hopes on waiting around for Prince Charming, but will seek out help in other ways too - confiding in friends, family members, or counselors, or calling a crisis hotline such as 1-800-DONT-CUT which is the S.A.F.E (Self Abuse Finally Ends) Alternatives hotline.
Willow is about a girl who is overwhelmed by her grief. She deals with her grief in a self-destructive way, and her cutting habit is not glossed over but is described in explicit detail. The author handles the topic with honesty and a blunt realism, so this may not be the book to pick up if you are looking for a cheerful narrator or neatly-resolved happily-ever-after ending. On the other hand, if you are interested in reading about a touching romance, if you would like to learn more about what motivates some people to rely on cutting, or if you enjoy the realism of hopefully-ever-after endings, then this book might suit your interests perfectly. I found Willow to be a difficult heroine to like, but the romantic elements of the story were compelling, and I was pleased to see Willow begin to take steps toward recovery by the end of the book. Despite the difficulties I had with the narrative style, it is virtually impossible not to see this story through to the last page once you've become invested in the characters. And this book has a fantastic last line.
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