The Saver

by Edeet Ravel

Seventeen-year-old Fern has not had an easy life. She struggles at school and lives with her mother in a roach-infested apartment where break-ins are common and the neighbors are unfriendly. Despite these challenges the two of them are managing to cope, but then Fern's mother suddenly has a heart attack and dies, and Fern is left utterly alone. She's a survivor, and not afraid of hard work, but how does a 17-year-old with no skills support herself? Using only her resourcefulness and resolve, Fern fights to create a new life, and just when things seem about to unravel, she discovers that she is not really on her own after all.

Genres: Young Adult, Canada, Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Death, Teen

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

About the author

Edeet Ravel is the author of sixteen books for children and adults. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and have won numerous awards, including the Hugh MacLennan Book Award, the J.I. Segal Award, the Canadian Jewish Book Award (in two categories), the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and the Snow Willow Award. Edeet's books have also been shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Book Prize, and the Arthur Ellis Crime Award. Edeet was a three-time Governor General's Award finalist in two categories. Her novel The Saver (Groundwood) was adapted into film by Wiebke von Carolsfeld. Her latest (crossover) novels are A Boy Is Not a Bird and A Boy Is Not a Ghost, about a child who is exiled to Siberia in WWII, and Miss Matty, in which a teenager in Montreal of 1942 dreams of being a Hollywood star. In the words of one young reader, "Edeet has a vision where what is strange is loved and what is beautiful -- our planet, our humanity -- is protected." Edeet lives in Montreal, Canada.

Reviews

[Lioness · Rating 4 out of 5]

It can be a hard task to write a book in the first person yet let the reader know stuff that the character doesn't.
Ravel does a very good job.
Fern is the daughter of a native woman and a "just passing through" European who met while working on a farm together.
When her mother dies, 17 year old Fern decides to go it on her own and through courage, determination and a likeableness she herself doesn't see, she succeeds.
Ravel has written a series of lighthearted novels for teens. It is nice to see her stretch a little here.

[Ophelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth reading in my opinion! I love how its written as a diary; those kinds tend to be my favourite types. "Saver" tells the story of a teen living in the worst conditions with even worse incidents happening to her. She tries to pieces her life back together and I admire her attempts. To me, this story is an inspiration in the making and I'd recommend it to anyone with a liking for realizing the world isn't always what it seems even when your positive it is.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting. I like the way the author created the main character's personality with the first person view, writing to an imaginary person on another world. The story was about a girl whose mother died and does not have any family that lives close to her, so she decides to try to find a way to live without having to pay for housing or food.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about 17 year old Fern Henderson, when one day her world turns totally upside down when she finds out that her mom Felicity has had a massive heart attack and has died. While at the hospital Fern lies to the hospital staff about her age and says she is 19 and that she would be ok to go home by herself. Fern has a very bad impression of herself and she then knows she has to change her thinking so she can survive. Fern has this invisible friend called Xanath, who is from a far away planet the she has journal conversations with, I think because she doesn't really have any friends. It helps her not to feel alone. She writes Xanath everyday to tell him how her day went.

Even though Ferns head is still trying to wrap around the fact that she wouldn't see her mom again, she has to figure out what she is going to do. She had an uncle that was in prison and they really didn't have contact with so Fern knows she can't be with him, but she writes him to let him know that his sister had died.

Fern ends up finding an ad in the newspaper asking for a super attendant for an apartment building and she thinks how hard could it be? Though the owner of the building seems suspicious of Fern's age of 19 the landlord really just wants to get the building off of his hands so he hires Fern and she has a new place to live. Little did Fern know that she would have her hands full with a very cranky complaining tenant, Mrs.Coleville . After awhile Fern doesn't feel so intimidated by her and she starts to get things working in the building. She does her best to fix what is needed and to deal with Mrs.Coleville everyday.

Fern knows that she needs another income to live so during the day she works at a hotel doing housekeeping and then in the evenings working in a kitchen doing dishes at a restaurant. Which no doubt completely wares Fern out. One day when Fern arrive s home after finishing her shifts at work, she comes home to find a man waiting for her at her apartment. Fern soon finds out that it was her mom's brother/ her uncle Jack.

Fern and her Uncle Jack end up speaking through the night and Fern agrees to let him live with her and he was going to take her hotel job so that she might even get some down time.

With Fern having her Uncle Jack now Fern finally didn't feel as alone, and she gave up her "friend" Xanath. I think that she was starting to feel safe again. That there were people out there that cared about her.

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was sad that Fern was alone for that time, but it shows her how strong she was and that she could do it!

[Morgan Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this story The Saver, the main character overcomes some of lifes most difficult challenges with living on her own and at a very young age. Who had to make some sacrifices along the way, to make what she has possible for herself. In this book the main character is named Fern who lives with her mother in an apartment where they can’t afford much. Till one day Fern comes home from school and a neighbor tells her, her mom has been rushed to the hospital. Immediately Fern knows her life is about to flip upside down for the worse. They mostly provided for themselves with what they got, with her mom being a maid she doesn’t make much. Fern later discovers her mom has suffered a heart attack and died instantly, now Fern regrets the last words she said to her mother. Fern wasn’t happy with her mother at the time, she just had a lot on her mind that day. Now with her mom gone all she is left with is her moms cakes, her cat Princess, and her imaginary friend Xanoth who she writes to in her diary almost everyday. Fern did what she felt was best for herself and dropped out of school and she’s only seventeen, and is now going to legit provide for her own. She is devastated, she writes to Xanoth, “I know there’s no pain on your planet, but here on earth we have a lot of pain. The only thing we can do is take drugs, but they don’t always work”(Ravel 86). Since Fern has dropped out of school and is now living on her own, she realizes that she’s gonna have to earn some money. She takes her mom's place and is now a maid herself, she tells the family that her mom is very sick and won’t be coming in for a while. Later on she applies for two more jobs that require a little extra time, she applied at a restaurant and applied to be a janitor at a hotel. After being at her jobs for quite a while now she realizes that it’s getting a lot tougher to keep up, she tells Xanoth one night, “My life has become insane. The restaurant job is a lot more tiring, especially if it’s a busy night. My boss is really Amir, not Mr and Mrs. Taza, because if he complains about me I’ll get fired” (Ravel 152). Due to money issues Fern moves out of her and her mom’s apartment and decides to live at the hotel she is working at with her cat Princess, both run into some difficult obstacles and some ominous people along the way. They both get through it their own way and both cope with the hardships they encounter when they meet up again.

[Canadian Children's Book Centre]

Seventeen-year-old Fern returns home from school and discovers that her mother has been rushed to the hospital. She dies before Fern even has a chance to say goodbye. For a teen with a loving support network, this would be a devastating emotional experience. For Fern, who lives an existence of extreme isolation, this is a catastrophe of a different nature. She must find a way to survive; this means lying about her age and keeping her mother’s death a secret. Fern leaves school and finds jobs in an apartment building and a restaurant so that she won’t need to pay for rent or food. Her great desire is that all of her money will go towards savings, something she and her mother never had. Fern’s story is told as a series of letters written to Xanoth, an alien character from a book she once read. These letters are written in a dispassionate style of storytelling that is often effective for difficult subjects like death but it is never an easy one to accomplish well. Yet Ravel succeeds in creating a wonderfully three dimensional character even while Fern’s thoughts and insights are understated and reserved. Sometimes Fern does share her loneliness and these instances are especially powerful because they occur rarely. Fern is utterly believable and even though she is more marginalized than most young adult heroines, she is smart and easy to sympathize with. Ravel slowly introduces some stability and emotional support into Fern’s life and shows that she is too strong and adaptable to give in to despair.

Reviewed By Kris Rothstein in Canadian Children's Book News
Winter 2009 VOL.32 NO.1

[Alice Lim · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Saver by Edeet Ravel, Fern, a seventeen year old girl who likes to keep to herself goes home to her neighbor telling her that her mother has been taken to the hospital. Later, when her mother had passed, all she has is her cat, Beauty and one last cake from her mother. There is also Xanoth, the boy who lives in a world full of beauty that Fern's does not have. She tells Xanoth about her life, waht has happened in her day, everything she doesn't talk about. While she is trying to figure her life out and eventually leave her old life completely. She is only 17, so she drops out of school and tries to make ends meet. Though this is a very interesting book, I didn't really enjoy it as much as I thought it would. It is a very well written book, but I like to lean towards book with more adventures or more excitement. Fern always starts her letters to Xanoth with "Hi Xanoth," and ends them with "Yours forever, Fern". Though I understand why Xanoth is very important to her, I am not into books that are in the diary format. Even after all she has been through to find who she is and get away from her life, "Things are going to be OK" (Ravel 200). I find it amazing that Fern found a way to be able to overcome all she has lost and lacked in her life to find a time that she could say everything would be okay.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very well written and if I was just going by that it would be a 5 star book but I have these neutral feelings about the book, meaning I don't like or hate it. This was a very weird book for me and I don't know how else to say it.

This book is about a 17 year old girl named Fern who has her life shattered when her mother suddenly dies. Fern is very resourceful and gets 3 jobs to take care of herself but she has no friends or family and writes almost daily to Xanoth her imaginary alien friend in the form of a Diary/Journal entries.

I felt like the book was a little too detached and maybe that's the way we are supposed to feel when we read this because of Fern's predicament and history. I mean the amount of tragedy in this girl's life it almost tantamount to abuse by the writer trying to evoke sympathy/empathy for the main character but I didn't feel any. I simple couldn't relate to Fern in a real way.

The good new is that there are some spectacular lines in the book and what I do love is the fact that Fern was an avid reader and went to the library a lot.

[HD · Rating 4 out of 5]

About a Montreal teen whose mother dies suddenly of a heart attack, leaving the seventeen year old alone in the world. With a resourcefulness borne of watching her mother make ends meet with her skimpy wages cleaning houses, the teen manages to elude the attention of social services and takes on three jobs to keep body and soul together. Working as a superintendent provides a roof over head, working at a Lebanese restaurant means that she has dinner every night. And tidying rooms at a motel means that she can afford supplies such as toilet paper and, every now and again, a splurge at Value Village on a 50% off day. The teen - Fern- is endearing - so modest, unassuming, grateful, and resilient.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. Fern is an interesting character. Given her history, her unusual choices in life are understandable. She was poor, overweight, and bullied. Then her mom died and she was complete alone on top of all that. She made up fantasies to escape her reality and made life decisions based on her plan to be a millionaire and have all the things she thought would make her happy. This while feeling that she wasn't good enough, smart enough, or attractive enough. She started making friends and accepting help in life. Her negativity decreased and she no longer needed to escape into fantasy.

[J New · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice solid story though the ending was a little too pat and rushed to me... similar to Don't You Dare Read This Ms. Dunphrey by Haddix, but set a little later in life... not sure its believable but its still a good read!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

ii learned iits never good to hide and runaway from wat scares u the most. and that jus because uve lost alot iin your liife doesnt mean u have to give up on liife

[Sabrina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda odd, okay I guess but I really wasn't a fan of it =/ About a teen going through troubles...

[Jaquan Starling · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was ok

[Amy Mathers · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://amysmarathonofbooks.ca/the-saver/