Apart

by R.P. MacIntyre, Wendy MacIntyre

Jessica, a serious, bookish 16-year-old from New Brunswick, places a personal ad to try to find her father, a drug-dealing philanderer who has run off with another woman, leaving her mother distraught and Jessica responsible for her autistic brother, Timmy. Sween, a 17-year-old rebel from Saskatchewan, responds to Jessica’s ad, and the two begin an intense long-distance relationship. Each needs the other's support, as Jessica finds herself drawn to one of her father’s biker friends, and Sween suffers a meltdown that lands him alone in a remote cabin. Eventually, he fixes up an old motorbike and travels east to help his friend prevent her father from institutionalizing Timmy. The resulting encounter surprises them both — along with the reader — as they struggle to reconcile their images of each other with a very different reality

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 8, 2007

About the author

R.P. MacIntyre is an actor, playwright, director and one of Canada’s most acclaimed authors of fiction with young adult voices. He is the author of Yuletide Blues (1991), The Blue Camaro (1994), and The Crying Jesus (1997). His story “The Rink” — published in The Blue Jean Collection (1994) and The Blue Camaro — won the 1993 Vicky Metcalf Short Story Award and was made into a film in 1997. He is also the editor of Up All Night (Thistledown Press, 2001) Takes: Stories for Young Adults which won the 1996 Saskatchewan Book Award for Publishing in Education and the Canadian Library Association’s 1997 Young Adult Award. Mahihkan Lake (2015) is his first adult novel. R.P. MacIntyre lives in Christina Lake, BC.

Reviews

[Willow · Rating 1 out of 5]

I got hooked in the beginning and then got completely disappointed by the end. I loved this concept of a story told in letters, and the characters were both interesting enough at the beginning that I got invested. But then the ending of the book was so bad, I was so confused at what was going on, it felt rushed, and just made me sad.

[Tracie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A novel written by two different authors as a series of letters between two confused, lonely and misunderstood teens. Both have real problems and their correspondence helps them feel connected, important and listened to. Things do fall apart in many ways in the book especially when the two eventually meet.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two teens write letters back and forth. Some of this is nice but the voices are not authentic and the ending is poor. Reviewed for the Dolly Gray Award.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I reviewed this book on my blog: The Real World According To Sam

[Amy Mathers · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/apart/