By: Claire Zorn
Genre: YFB - General fiction (Children's/Teenage)
Published by: University of Queensland Press
Published: 23 Jul 2014
ISBN: 9780702250194
Description
I have three months left to call Katie my older sister. Then the gap will close and I will pass her. I will get older. But Katie will always be fifteen, eleven months and twenty-one days old.
Hannah’s world is in pieces and she doesn’t need the school counsellor to tell her she has deep-seated psychological issues. With a seriously depressed mum, an injured dad and a dead sister, who wouldn’t have problems?
Hannah should feel terrible but for the first time in ages, she feels a glimmer of hope and isn’t afraid anymore. Is it because the elusive Josh is taking an interest in her? Or does it run deeper than that?
In a family torn apart by grief and guilt, one girl’s struggle to come to terms with years of torment shows just how long old wounds can take to heal.
Review
With strong themes of bullying, grief and healing, The Protected is a touching story of fra-gility and humanity.
When 14 year old Hannah’s older sister Katie dies in a car accident, her family is torn apart. With an injured and guilt ridden father and a very depressed mother, Hannah’s life couldn’t get any worse.
But why is Hannah’s life starting to turn for the better? Surely new boy Josh, who thumbs his nose at authority, isn’t taking a real interest in her. Or is he?
The author pulls you into Hannah’s story and generates a real compassion in the reader for Hannah’s circumstances, with the glimmer of hope that her world can improve after years of bullying and the terrible accident.
Written with language appropriate to the storyline, The Protected is best suited to those 15+.
