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Blindside
Before the accident, Nate would run. But that was before.
A bike collision lands him in a hospital bed, but the people he meets on his ward make him realise that it's not the end, not yet.
A beautifully written story with true depth, that tackles the mess that is life head on. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers aged 12+
A bike collision lands him in a hospital bed, but the people he meets on his ward make him realise that it's not the end, not yet.
A beautifully written story with true depth, that tackles the mess that is life head on. Particularly suitable for struggling, reluctant and dyslexic readers aged 12+
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 15, 2015
1 person is currently reading
59 people want to read
About the author
Aidan Chambers
100 books303 followersAidan Chambers was a British author of children's and young-adult novels. He won both the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award for Postcards from No Man's Land (1999). For his "lasting contribution to children's literature" he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 28, 2019
An adequately well written book written by Aidan Chambers with a projected audience of teens or people who like to read shorter books. It’s clearly a moral story that could be a non-fiction but most likely made up. Personally, I finished it in around an hour or 2 collectively which is very short even considering it only has 100 pages. The book is dyslexia friendly which is clearly noticeable because the pages have line gaps that are twice or triple the usual size and only half the page is used. The book is based on a teen, named Nate, that has a passion for athleticism (mainly running) and he is written to be the best in the club that he is apart of. (*Spoiler alert*) He is pressured into going to a party but on his way is hit by a truck and from then it becomes very unclear what idea the writer is writing about. To be honest, it’s almost like the writer was confused himself during this even in the book.
He then has a series of mild events in hospital, including: visits, an angry tantrum that he goes on, the destruction of a young boy’s (Jamie’s) camera film. This is all due to his anger from not being able to run properly, or at all during being immobilised in a wheelchair. He then finds out that the boy, of which he destroyed his property, had a serious heart disease that has a possibility of killing him. He feels empathetic towards the boy and after multiple attempts of forgiveness, the boy finally accepts the camera film that the teen had bought for him. From this point the book is very rushed almost like the author was limited to only 100 pages and had wasted his pages talking about the boy’s success in running but couldn’t be bothered to go back and make amendments. To talk about such a serious topic (the heart disease) with such little care to making sure it was perfect is just unacceptable and the publisher and/or editor should’ve noticed this. Until this point the book has mainly been based upon happy events that has sick/sad twists near the end of the event but the most viable point of seeing this is looking at the end. During a big operation on the child, he sadly didn’t survive (this was very unexpected), this is although just before this (maybe a couple of pages) they were having fun and taking photos with their camera. As I said before, this seems too rushed and cramped to be talking about such a serious topic. If there was a thing called claustrophobic writing this would describe it perfectly.
Positively, the book included a very substantial amount of key elements, for example on page 41, it says, ‘her eyes full of diamonds’. But me saying this is almost contradictory because that makes it appear like a romantic scene or something with happiness involved and that's how it may appear with just this quote. Realistically, it is talking about the fury inside herself. Surprisingly I like how the author has gone with a unorthodox way of describing fury. A more common example of fury would be described as, ‘you could see the steam coming out of her ears’ or, ‘the devils inside of her were screeching’. An ametuer writer or really anyone with any experience in writing could’ve written this book so to come from a professional author like Aidan Chambers, who’s written very good books such as ‘Toll Bridge’ is unexpected.
During an event where he describes the pain in his leg, the author uses descriptive language that only someone with experience of casts could write it. Having been in a cast myself, the author describes it so realistically and so similarly to the exact type of pain and relief you would feel if you had a cast. This is my favourite part of the book. Previously I mentioned that it was a Moral Story and now I’m going to go through more detail in what I meant by saying that. When Nate is angry he believes he is the most looked down-upon person in the world. So when he destroys Jamie’s camera film he believes that Jamie is ungrateful and should respect that he is more injured than him. Successively he exclaims this to his doctor but when he finds out the real story he is shocked and is instead really grateful. The book is a moral story about gratefulness and be grateful for what you have and don't presume that someone else has an easier life than you just because they appear to. The author presents this idea well.
Near the beginning of the book, the author describes the temperature well. A good example of the author demonstrating the weather's effect on people is in just the first sentence of the book, ‘The hot water struck Nate’s body and he tensed and whistled in pain’. This is a good example because as I said before with the cast, he describes it so perfectly only someone with experience of that pain/relief could’ve written it.
In conclusion, I believe this book deserves a 3.2 out of 5. This may seem harsh but when rating this I was trying to have it in comparison with other books of it’s amount of pages and renownedness of author. Overall the book could’ve been written better because it felt rushed and forced. If I was to guess the writer either had to write this in a set time and didn’t manage his time correctly and/or he was limited to 100 pages and couldn’t manage the spacing required for each event. We can see this when he talks about the main concept of the book which is gratefulness, the main demonstration of this is when he finds out about Jamie’s condition. He clearly spent too less time for such a sensitive topic.
He then has a series of mild events in hospital, including: visits, an angry tantrum that he goes on, the destruction of a young boy’s (Jamie’s) camera film. This is all due to his anger from not being able to run properly, or at all during being immobilised in a wheelchair. He then finds out that the boy, of which he destroyed his property, had a serious heart disease that has a possibility of killing him. He feels empathetic towards the boy and after multiple attempts of forgiveness, the boy finally accepts the camera film that the teen had bought for him. From this point the book is very rushed almost like the author was limited to only 100 pages and had wasted his pages talking about the boy’s success in running but couldn’t be bothered to go back and make amendments. To talk about such a serious topic (the heart disease) with such little care to making sure it was perfect is just unacceptable and the publisher and/or editor should’ve noticed this. Until this point the book has mainly been based upon happy events that has sick/sad twists near the end of the event but the most viable point of seeing this is looking at the end. During a big operation on the child, he sadly didn’t survive (this was very unexpected), this is although just before this (maybe a couple of pages) they were having fun and taking photos with their camera. As I said before, this seems too rushed and cramped to be talking about such a serious topic. If there was a thing called claustrophobic writing this would describe it perfectly.
Positively, the book included a very substantial amount of key elements, for example on page 41, it says, ‘her eyes full of diamonds’. But me saying this is almost contradictory because that makes it appear like a romantic scene or something with happiness involved and that's how it may appear with just this quote. Realistically, it is talking about the fury inside herself. Surprisingly I like how the author has gone with a unorthodox way of describing fury. A more common example of fury would be described as, ‘you could see the steam coming out of her ears’ or, ‘the devils inside of her were screeching’. An ametuer writer or really anyone with any experience in writing could’ve written this book so to come from a professional author like Aidan Chambers, who’s written very good books such as ‘Toll Bridge’ is unexpected.
During an event where he describes the pain in his leg, the author uses descriptive language that only someone with experience of casts could write it. Having been in a cast myself, the author describes it so realistically and so similarly to the exact type of pain and relief you would feel if you had a cast. This is my favourite part of the book. Previously I mentioned that it was a Moral Story and now I’m going to go through more detail in what I meant by saying that. When Nate is angry he believes he is the most looked down-upon person in the world. So when he destroys Jamie’s camera film he believes that Jamie is ungrateful and should respect that he is more injured than him. Successively he exclaims this to his doctor but when he finds out the real story he is shocked and is instead really grateful. The book is a moral story about gratefulness and be grateful for what you have and don't presume that someone else has an easier life than you just because they appear to. The author presents this idea well.
Near the beginning of the book, the author describes the temperature well. A good example of the author demonstrating the weather's effect on people is in just the first sentence of the book, ‘The hot water struck Nate’s body and he tensed and whistled in pain’. This is a good example because as I said before with the cast, he describes it so perfectly only someone with experience of that pain/relief could’ve written it.
In conclusion, I believe this book deserves a 3.2 out of 5. This may seem harsh but when rating this I was trying to have it in comparison with other books of it’s amount of pages and renownedness of author. Overall the book could’ve been written better because it felt rushed and forced. If I was to guess the writer either had to write this in a set time and didn’t manage his time correctly and/or he was limited to 100 pages and couldn’t manage the spacing required for each event. We can see this when he talks about the main concept of the book which is gratefulness, the main demonstration of this is when he finds out about Jamie’s condition. He clearly spent too less time for such a sensitive topic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 28, 2022
I struggle to understand how this was even published
September 8, 2024
It is a very basic but meaningful story.
June 6, 2025
Felt like it was a bit too short of a book to really resonate with the characters in any way. I can see what the author was trying to convey but it didn’t really work sadly
February 18, 2017
fantastic story. Beautifully written. Finished in one sitting but thoroughly enjoyed it. great for teens or anyone who wants to get lost in a book for a few hours.
January 3, 2015
I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I first started reading Blindside by Aidan Chambers. I knew it would be about a boy involved in an accident and dealing with a lack of mobility.
I was surprised by the depths of description towards Nate's accident and how much pain and suffering he goes through initially. Nate is a teenage boy with lots of athletic promise. He dreams of being a competitive runner but on his way towards a night out on his bike at a nasty junction, he's blindsided by a vehicle and wakes up in the hospital.
With the sudden loss of his dreams, Nate goes through a whole range of reactions including anger and depression. And that is when we go into a story line that I don't normally enjoy: that of meeting someone else, full of life and worse off than our main character who teaches our main character to be happy and feel lucky for his lot in life.
I did really enjoy Nate's anger and his descent into depression. I felt like these were realistic and believeable reactions to everything that has happened to him and even his interest in another hobby thanks to another patient.. Perhaps if the story were a bit longer and there was more time to develop different feelings I wouldn't have felt off about Nate's friendship? I'm not sure. Still, an interesting read!
I was surprised by the depths of description towards Nate's accident and how much pain and suffering he goes through initially. Nate is a teenage boy with lots of athletic promise. He dreams of being a competitive runner but on his way towards a night out on his bike at a nasty junction, he's blindsided by a vehicle and wakes up in the hospital.
With the sudden loss of his dreams, Nate goes through a whole range of reactions including anger and depression. And that is when we go into a story line that I don't normally enjoy: that of meeting someone else, full of life and worse off than our main character who teaches our main character to be happy and feel lucky for his lot in life.
I did really enjoy Nate's anger and his descent into depression. I felt like these were realistic and believeable reactions to everything that has happened to him and even his interest in another hobby thanks to another patient.. Perhaps if the story were a bit longer and there was more time to develop different feelings I wouldn't have felt off about Nate's friendship? I'm not sure. Still, an interesting read!
August 21, 2015
It's great to see a real surge in the field of dyslexia friendly teenage fiction and the quality of the texts keeps growing. It's also great to see some popular authors contributing to the genre. 'Blindside' is one of the stronger ones that I have read (and I have read a fair few now). The protagonist's accident and personal and emotional recovery are documented in a realistic and manageable way. Despite fewer words, this book does not lack in character development and pulls on the heart strings of the reader.
November 4, 2016
For once I'm rating a book lower than the average rating...
I don't like that...
This was a nice little read, a 2 hour distraction from the things I should have been doing for school (like doing Bio, which I should be doing now as well...), but I felt that it wasn't "deep" enough. I felt that it was a very well written book but I personally would not necessarily recommend it to people who read books like I do...
But then again, we all have our own tastes, so go ahead - enjoy :D
:)
I don't like that...
This was a nice little read, a 2 hour distraction from the things I should have been doing for school (like doing Bio, which I should be doing now as well...), but I felt that it wasn't "deep" enough. I felt that it was a very well written book but I personally would not necessarily recommend it to people who read books like I do...
But then again, we all have our own tastes, so go ahead - enjoy :D
:)
March 8, 2015
I cired at the end, and although I got annoyed with Nate's attitude I loved the story.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews