When you reach me by Rebecca Stead 

I've wanted to read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead for the longest time but for some reason, I never got around to reading it. Or getting myself a copy. There was a time when I saw a hardcover copy of this book on sale, but I let it go thinking I could find it again and go back for it. But alas, it was gone. I ordered it and a few other books on Amazon for this assignment, I didn’t have enough money in my budget to buy them new so I bought the used ones and it took three weeks to get them, yay! finally got them.

I'm a huge fan of the time travel theme; there's a ton of possibilities an author has with plot. After reading When You Reach Me, I felt a bit underwhelmed. Initially, it seemed like there was a whole lot of nothing going on during the majority of the text. However, I skimmed over a few chapters again, and I started to realize how important those little scenes were.

It's 1979, and Miranda and her best friend Sal knew everything about their New York City neighborhood. She lived a pretty normal life, until Sal got punched on their way home for no reason. Miranda's life starts to come undone at this point, and it doesn't help that she received some strange letters from someone who needs her help. As the letters come, she realized that whoever wrote the letter knew many things about her, things that other people don't and shouldn't know. She wished she could just ignore them, but what if the notes are true, and only she can stop someone from dying?

I loved Miranda's voice from the very start she reminds me of those characters I loved reading as a child. She's a kid, but she's also very mature and I liked how she viewed the world and her family and the conversations she had with them. I liked how you know from the start that this isn't a normal middle grade novel, and it wasn't even before I really discovered the mystery in it. The fact that Miranda's mom is joining a game show so they could win $20,000 is already a clue that this book is different, and I knew I would like this book even before I was halfway done.

There's a sci-fi element in this book that built the mystery up, and I have to admit that it got me a bit confused at first. I was really constantly guessing about who sent the letters and I was kind of glad that my hunch wasn't correct, because I was really surprised at how it all ended up. I liked the conversations of the characters of the book even if they're not the type of things I talked about when I was their age.

This book also made me curious about A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, which I never read. I know, it seems like required reading for so many kids, but it skipped me! The only L'Engle book I read when I was younger was Meet the Austins, which is connected to the characters there, I think? Anyway, even if I never read the book, I liked how it was very anchored to that, and it gives for additional reading for kids (and adults) who end up really liking When You Reach Me.

Book trailer

https://youtu.be/EV7zyHrsI4M?list=WL