The Promise

by Robert Westall

After his sort-of-girlfriend dies, teen-aged Bob is shocked to discover that their love was stronger than he thought, even strong enough to transcend death

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Ghosts, Fiction, Historical Fiction

Hardcover

First published September 1, 1990

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Robert Westall was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England in 1929.

His first published book The Machine Gunners (1975) which won him the Carnegie Medal is set in World War Two when a group of children living on Tyneside retrieve a machine-gun from a crashed German aircraft. He won the Carnegie Medal again in 1981 for The Scarecrows, the first writer to win it twice. He won the Smarties Prize in 1989 for Blitzcat and the Guardian Award in 1990 for The Kingdom by the Sea. Robert Westall's books have been published in 21 different countries and in 18 different languages, including Braille.

From: http://www.robertwestall.com/

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was so taken with Westall’s ‘adult’ ghost stories that I purchased a substantial lot of his teen-oriented supernatural books. This actually felt more sophisticated than a typical YA story, filled with charming characters and loaded with nostalgia. Really lovely.

[A.B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this so many times as a child. I had to have been 10 or less I think. Took me many years to remember it enough no find it again. I had the cover pretty much memorized. The first book I cried at that I remember and my first paranormal. Wow mom what did you let me read?!?

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't understand why...Scholastic would have this as a thriller?

The UK equivalent of Point Horror doesn't even have it as such.

If you had to compare it to anything of a "thriller/horror" genre it would be kind of like something classic and gothic such as Turn Of The Screw or Rebecca. Truthfully, it doesn't even feel like that if I'm honest.

More like Wuthering Heights.

Robert Westall is good with details in his prose and that was intriguing again like reading something more classic than contemporary. It's set against the start of Britain's involvement in World War II and is either England or Scotland because there is a lot of dialogue that indicates the latter.

Mostly the word "bairn" which is a baby or a child which is how I get that vibe.

The blurb on the back is accurate in a roundabout way.

Bob Bickerstaffe is our narrator as an older man recounting a time in his youth where he was fourteen going on fifteen. We get stories about a time before then but most of the story hinges on his teen years.

At school once the boys and girls have classes together with boys on one side and girls on another, Bob notices a girl with a beautiful nose, gray-green eyes like an angel and red-gold hair like a sunset.

He soon finds her name to be Valerie Monkton and she is the daughter of his father's boss. Most of the time she is absent but when she is there, Bob can not help but stare at her. Soon, Valerie notices his glances and talks to him slightly. Bob tries to act like he doesn't care so he doesn't get ridiculed by his fellow males.

Bob, however, is more mature than the other boys his age and secretly is pleased to have her attention. Valerie talks to her parents about Bob and his parents relay that the more well to do Monkton family would like to invite him over for tea.

Bob goes and there is a slight budding of romance between he and Valerie yet she is just as fiery as her hair but as fragile as the porcelain china of their tea. By the way Valerie's parents and his own act, Bob soon finds that Valerie is ill and doctors say she won't live for much longer.

The Monktons want Bob to be around their daughter to give her a little bit of happiness in her final days and Bob can't help but be protective of Valerie. When they are able to be alone, Bob takes Valerie for walks about the town and beach even though she has been told not to because of her delicate health.

Valerie tells Bob she has nightmares about being lost with no one to find her and when he upsets her and Valerie asks Bob to promise that he will always find her...he agrees. The last walk they go on ends disastrously when her parents find out Valerie has been going out and they forbid Bob to come back and upset her health.

World War II happens not long after that.

Bob is soon welcomed back to the Monkton house when Valerie's health is having her at her most dire hour. They stay under watch of her mother and with their bond mended, Valerie is once again happy for but a moment.

Bob soon is told that Valerie has died and he has no idea that the promise he made to her will be kept. Her body is soon gone to the earth and then taken by the evil of war but Valerie's spirit remains waiting for Bob to find her as he agreed.

Bob is too good for this Earth and he plans to keep his promise at any cost even if it may be his own life...

I won't spoil much else but it is very hard not to although the outcome is not too hard to figure out since it is an older Bob telling us this story.

I liked it but I didn't necessarily love it. It has aspects to my taste of romance but we take just a little too long to get to the real heart of this story.

The romance between Bob and Valerie is very chaste with a few kisses and caresses but nothing tawdry. It also takes awhile to get to the supernatural twist in this tale and the ending was tragic.

Anything set against the backdrop of WWII is bound to be tragic but there was an air of healing amongst the characters. I'm still slightly confused about just what resolved the conflict but maybe I just missed it.

If you are a fan of of classic literature from any of the Bronte sisters or have a taste for films like the ones I mentioned before hand, I can recommend this book to you.

If you are fond of literature that deals with WWII, it might be your cup of tea as well.

If you were expecting a different kind of ghost story with more of an edge, The Promise may not be for you.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Promise is set during World War II. It is 1939, and Bob, the protagonist of the story, is 14-years-old at the time of the retelling. This makes our narrator 65-years-old--assuming that the current age of the narrator corresponds with the initial date of publication, which is 1990. The details and descriptions of the war-torn nation are startlingly vivid, and dominate the majority of the novel. Although I initially selected this book based on its status as a Scholastic YA Fiction Thriller, I have to admit this is not much of a ghost story. Rather, it is a coming-of-age tale that delves into an atypical pattern of romantic interludes. I wouldn't describe this book as a supernatural tale in the slightest. The main character lost someone he cared for deeply, and the book explores the grieving process and natural human reactions of the family. There are certain aspects of heartbreak and nostalgia, and that ever-present feeling of being haunted by the memories of a recently deceased loved one.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Don't ever give me that crap about ghosts being scary. Nobody who's lost anybody thinks ghosts are scary. People who've lost somebody special want to be haunted. They beg and pray to be haunted."

Absolutely true. A sad and wonderful book.

[Manda · Rating 1 out of 5]

This felt way more like a period piece about a teen boy’s experiences with school, first love, death and WW2 from the home front perspective. As I read, I couldn’t help wondering whether this was popular when it was initially published in 1990 because it’s got a lot of dated and location specific lingo that kept jolting me out of the story. I’ll admit it took me awhile to figure out the year it was set in and that became annoying because I didn’t know how to envision the characters as I was reading.
Also super distracting? The number of times the main character mentions the female character’s “bulges”. EVEN WHEN SHE WAS A GHOST HE MENTIONS THEM. And he calls them “bulges” every. single. time. My eyes nearly got stuck rolled back in my head.

The (ghostly?) elephant in the room: this book is marketed mainly as a ghost story, matter of fact it doesn’t mention WW2 in the summary at ALL. Well. Let me tell you. There are 170 pages in this book and the haunting starts on page 120. Up to that point is school drama, crushing, air raids, more romance, death and near death by bombing, oh and bullies. I feel like this was characterized as a ghost story bait and switch to try to get teens to read about what the war was like for young people in 1939. I do think it did a good job on sharing that perspective but it just wasn’t what I was expecting to read.
I did like page 99, “Don’t ever give me that crap about ghosts being scary. Nobody who’s lost anybody thinks ghosts are scary. People who’ve lost someone special *want* to be haunted. They beg and pray to be haunted.” There was something real in those words that I could relate to.
Overall, this book was just an odd, ODD duck.

[Ania Marci · Rating 3 out of 5]

La scoperta dell’amore a tredici anni, viverlo con la paura dell’ignoto, con la paura che tutto finisca. Scoprire che la morte spesso non aspetta la vecchiaia per portarsi via qualcuno; che l’amore “interrotto” fa male, che perdere qualcuno che si ama fa male, ma anche che un legame malato può essere anche peggio.
La Promessa è un libro dalle tinte gotiche che tratta tematiche importanti (come l’amore, la solitudine, la famiglia, la guerra, il lutto) affrontate da due ragazzini nel fiore degli anni. Sullo sfondo, una cittadina inglese in piena seconda guerra mondiale dove ogni giorno può essere l’ultimo. Un romanzo breve (forse anche troppo) con una prima parte ben costruita e una seconda sbrigativa e chiusa troppo in fretta che lascia un po’ insoddisfatti (altre 30 pagine ci stavano bene). Peccato, poteva essere molto di più.

[Sula · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting this to be a fairly casual children's read, with a bit of a spooky feel, and while the writing style is quite causal and approachable, I was surprised by how moving the story was. Robert Westall covers the big topics of love and death, depicting the complex emotions and relationships between characters to create a thought-provoking and poignant tale for adults as well as older children.

[Tehnehn Kaijaah Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gotta say that this was a great book. It was extremely well written and I really liked the story. The characters are mostly like able, it is engaging and at times had me on the edge of my seat. Got even better during the second half. Would I call it a Thriller? No. Would I call it a supernatural love story of sorts..yes.

[Sara]

I read this years and years ago in High School. I finally found it!

[Biblio_micky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Libro per giovani adulti. Pesante l'ambientazione ma ancora di più il finale sbrigativo e poco interessante.

[VAle · Rating 1 out of 5]

preso in biblioteca

Sostanzialmente scarso.
Forse vorrebbe essere un romanzo "gotico", ma nella sostanza risulta solo un romanzo scialbo.

La trama? Eccola!
** Attenzione SPOILER **
Lui, dopo una ritrosia iniziale, ama lei, bellissima e malatissima. Lui non sembra rendersi bene conto di cosa abbia lei. Segue il classico periodo idilliaco nel quale escono di nascosto a passeggiare spensierati (ben 2 baci con la lingua!). Lei è ossessionata dalla solitudine e gli chede una promessa: cercarla se si perdesse. Lui, ovviamente promette per farla star buona, senza capire. Nel frattempo sullo sfondo è comparsa la seconda guerra mondiale. Ovviamente lei muore (ma erano già da interi capitoli che se ne sentiva l'esigenza!!). Lui la prende un po' così, tra il "vabbé, ma io che c'entro" e il "oddio è morta, ma non riesco ancora a rendermene conto, me la sogno e lei mi manda messaggi." Si intrufola a casa sua e lei è lì, fantasma, e gli ciuccia la vita piano piano. Il padre di lei capisce e lo salva. Tentativo di esorcismo e lei viene portata via dal fantasma di un pilota tedesco precipitato nel giardino durate l'esorcismo. E vissero tutti felici e contenti.

L'ennesimo libro letto perchè segnalato nelle bibliografie per Giovani Adulti che mi fa chiedere quale sia l'obiettivo che si vuole raggiungere con questo tipo di proposte.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bob is a typical young man in England in the late 1930s. He and his friends never paid much notice to the girls on the other side of the classroom. But when Valerie joins the class, Bob finds himself looking at her in secret and daydreaming. Then, one day, his dad announces that Bob has been invited to Valerie's house for tea. With much reservation, Bob goes to tea. Soon, he finds himself going to tea every Saturday and he and Valerie become more than friends. But Valerie's health is fragile and when the inevitable happens, Bob's not sure he can go on. Until the day he gets a sign from Valerie to come see her.

I liked this book. The character of Bob is very likable, although perhaps a little more work could have been done on Valerie's character. But the fascinating turn of events in which Valerie begins to take Bob's warmth (and thus, his life) is a great metaphor for loving too much. The British vocabulary is charming, too.

[Alessandro Margheriti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Caro sig. Westall, la preferisco di gran lunga quando scrive libri per bambini, senza pretese ma originali e divertenti, che quando (come in questo caso) vuole scrivere un libro serio e pretenzioso ma poi scivola e inciampa nei più intollerabili luoghi comuni. Il che non è necessariamente un male se non fosse che il libro nella prima parte è eccessivamente melenso, nella seconda troppo poco credibile.
E mi creda, il genere gotico è un'altra cosa.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book as a teen, LOVED IT. A ghost story, a story of first love, and a story of life in England during WWII, this book had a bit of everything. It also had a very likable main character in Bob, the narrator. I had quite a crush on him myself. I loved the accents and the little details about clothes and food and the class struggle. Such a great book!

[Gebanuzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first English Read"
realmente creo haber entendido solo un 70% de todo! xD

[rhiannonrising · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ghostly but not scary, more romantic sentiment and nostalgia with a bit of the macabre.

[Michelle]

Listed as Q4 = Exceptional!, P4 = A book everyone wants to read