Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name

by Avi

Too Many Questions It wasn't that thirteen-year-old Conrad didn't like living with his aunt and uncle in St. Louis. It's just that his mother and father both lived in New York and he hadn't seen them lately. And he had a few questions he needed to have answered. That's how Conrad happened to spend the strangest week of his life in New York City with a girl he hardly knew--and getting more answers than he had questions...about his parents, himself, and what real families are all about. Conrad lives in St. Louis with his aunt and uncle, who his divorced parents feel can provide the stable home life they can't manage in New York City. When his mother decides that he should spend spring vacation in London instead of with her, Conrad is sure something is wrong, and he goes to New York to find out what. Once there he contacts Nancy, a secretive girl with a family life just as strange as Conrad's. With Nancy by his side, Conrad embarks on a remarkable adventure of discovery-about his family and about himself.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Friendship, Family, Childrens

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Avi is a pen name for Edward Irving Wortis, but he says, "The fact is, Avi is the only name I use." Born in 1937, Avi has created many fictional favorites such as The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Nothing but the Truth, and the Crispin series. His work is popular among readers young and old.

Reviews

[Liaken · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a strange book. Deals with broken marriages that break apart and that insist on staying together, and the damage that comes to the children in those marriages.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

A less fantastical, angstier book than Charlotte Doyle, this Avi y/a novel concerns two kids with different ways of disguising the truth about their family lives. It was a very powerful book for me in jr. high.

[Susan Reyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Argh! This book is so real, so painful, so sad, and ultimately beautiful. As I read it, I thought it was just a story of a 13-year-old boy who missed his parents. In the end it turned out to be a piece of art about human emotion and frailty.

[Jeremy J · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is “Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name” by Avi. this book is about a kid who is going to England for summer vacation instead of visiting his parents in New York but since the flight stops in New York he escapes and eventually finds a friend that lets him stay at her apartment and after a few days he sees his parents and then goes home.

A part which affects the reader is after the dinner with Nancy’s parents her and Conrad’s relationship is growing and it is nice to see that. Another time would be almost when the book ends after Conrad goes back to St. Louis while he waits for Nancy to be back in St. Louis in the book it says that Nancy is the most important person in Conrad’s life. Another part would be when it says that there was no way Conrad could get to New York but he did.

I would recommend this book it is good and it has the character tell lies and then eventually make a friend that would know who he really is and eventually he would not tell lies at the end of the book. This book was really easy to read but is very good. This book was also predictable because it was easy to tell when something was going to happen.

[Jameson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another y/a book that I read too young. This book has stuck with me more than perhaps anything else I've ever read, and reading it again as a young adult, it's extremely easy to tell why. This book is concise, cutting, and bittersweet, and manages to capture the confusion and loneliness of children of broken households. I've been looking for this book again for as long as I can remember, and it was more than worth the 10-ish years I've had to marinate on it.

[Rick Bavera · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think I would have been traveling around on my own like the main character. Could I have? Probably. Would I have wanted to? Probably not.
And my parents would have been worried out of their minds.

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

I remembered this book from my childhood as a moving story of the protagonist's teenage angst in his dysfunctional family. Reading it now, decades later, I was so, so disappointed! I've now decided that Conrad is a real jerk. Sure, he's in a tough situation. He wants to see his parents, and his mom, for one, has no interest in seeing him.

Avi (Wortis) wrote this book in 1981, not this century, so instant communication was not possible. Nevertheless, Conrad could have left messages on his parents' answering machines to let them know he was all right. He could have scheduled meetings with them. Instead, he surprised each of them by simply showing up at their Brooklyn apartments. He barely spends 15 minutes with each. Maybe in those sad meetings he realizes they are not good parents. At least his father makes an effort--inviting him to lunch the next day. Conrad accepts, but decides he doesn't want to go, and doesn't bother calling his father to cancel. Even with bad parents, Conrad has an obligation to honor them. He really fell flat here.

Nancy invites Conrad to dinner with her very distant parents, who live in the penthouse a few floors up from Nancy's and her older sister Pat's condo. Nancy probably wanted Conrad to attend because her interactions with her parents were likely very awkward and unpleasant. So what does Conrad do? He ruins the dinner! He stops being a pathological liar for once, tells the truth about his working-class parents and starts yelling, screaming and pushing table items to the floor. Why? Why take out his anger on Nancy's parents? Why make Nancy look absolutely terrible?

I'm disappointed in Nancy, too. The title is cute, but after she changes schools, they don't need to send mind messages to each other. Nancy could write Conrad every week or every day. They could speak on the phone. They could get married in five years. She loves him. Why drop him like a hot potato?

This is one of the saddest books I've ever read--right up there with the guy who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck. (Not Moby Dick. A more recent book.) It needn't be. Conrad could have and should have been nicer on his trip to New York. Nancy could have made arrangements to stay in touch. The best part of the book is it's only 130 pages in paperback and can be read in a couple of hours. The book's setup is great. How it plays out is so, so disappointing.

[Tani Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

GENERAL FICTION CATEGORY
Conrad lives in St. Louis with his Aunt Lu and Uncle Carl. His parents live in New York. After the divorce, it was decided this was best for everyone. And it is, until Conrad realizes that his parents no longer seem to know him. He hasn't seen them in almost a year, and the presents they sent for Christmas were things he didn't care about. When his aunt and uncle tell him he's going to England for vacation instead of New York to see his parents, he becomes desperate to find a way to change the plan. As he is picking up his plane ticket, by chance he meets Nancy, a girl with a tiny green butterfly tattoo on her hand, who hardly speaks. Nancy lives in St. Louis. Her parents live in New York. When Conrad finds himself in New York, he and Nancy find his parents. As he becomes closer to Nancy, he realizes the truth about his parents and comes to understand his aunt and his uncle too.
When I was twelve, I stole this book from my public library. I just couldn't bear to give it back. One of Avi's earlier works, it's written in deceptively simple language, the characters are believable, and the pages almost turn themselves.

[Jason Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. I read it first in middle school in the early 2000s and it immediately became one of my favorite books. I remember picking it randomly off the library bookshelf, reading it, and loving it so much I immediately went back to the beginning and read it again. As an awkward and very nerdy kid myself, the relationship between Conrad and Nancy really was beautiful. At that age I didn’t fully appreciate the sadness of Conrad’s relationship with his parents. Now that I’m a parent of two beautiful children, I just reread the book and it hit me ten times harder. I feel so much pain when I think about Conrad and how he just wants to spend time with his two parents who are kind in dead end careers (and lives). It reminds me that my kids don’t need me to be successful in a conventional sense, make a lot of money, send them to school in Switzerland, or have a fancy house. They just need me.

[Astrid713 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a read aloud in fifth grade, and at the time, I thought it was one of the best books I had read the whole year. I could picture the whole story really clearly in my mind, almost as if it was a TV show I was watching. I pictured what the main character (Conrad) looked like, and his hometown. I was actually sort of sad when we finished the book, because I had really enjoyed reading (well, more like listening) to it. The characters were very realistic and I could relate to how they felt in many ways. The overall plot was very strong, and again, very realistic and possible.

[reigndrops · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was 11, so I would reccommend this book for middle schoolers.

It's basically a story about a boy and a girl who both have many complicated family problems. They get to know each other and help each other face these problems. I know this review is lacking...but it was a long time ago, and if I mention anything else, it would probably ruin the book.

By the way, the ending is AMAZING.

[Dav · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this book had a very good plot idea. However, the book kind of lost me in the middle. The whole thing about his parents being divorsed did not affect the book as much as I would have liked it to.
It was an ok book.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. The thing is, I really just didn't like the characters. Not the writing, the characters themselves. I didn't relate to them, I thought they were unlikable... made it hard to like or appreciate their story.

[Erin O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic small book! Stick with it until the very end and it will be very worth it.

[Laurie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book based on title alone when I was younger. I only remember now that it was sort of sad.

[Isaac Sturgeon]

I enjoyed reading the novel “Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name” by Avi. The lexile level is 540. My book is about a 13 year old boy named Conrad Murphy who lives with his aunt and uncle. He is supposed to go to London but he ditches his flight to go to New York to surprise his divorced parents. This scares his aunt and uncle because they assume that he is going to London but he has other ideas. What he doesn’t realize is that he is homeless in New York because he doesn’t live with his parents and he has no money. He meets a girl named Nancy and ends up to be that they fall in love with each other, they end up living together in Nancy's family’s apartment. Later on at the end of the book, Nancy moves away and he goes back to his Aunt and Uncle.


I believe the theme is love and loyalty. Love drives Conrad to find Nancy and slowly fall in love with each other. Conrad realizes that he needs to be loyal to his aunt and uncle and to come back home. At first throughout the book, Conrad only follows his heart and not the fact that he has worried family sick and that he is not thinking.


This book was a classic love story. A young boy following his heart to meet what he wants to be his true love. I personally enjoyed reading this novel and it was one that I would truly recommend to all readers. It was interesting the entire time and I never could have predicted what would happen. There was not a moment where I was not entertained.