Book Review: Love, Aubrey
Saturday, October 22, 2011 | 10:33 AM | 0 flower(s)
Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur
Something heartbreaking has happened. Eleven-year-old Aubrey is on her own.
"It was fun at first, playing house. Nothing to think but TV and cheese. A perfect world."
She's determined to hide away and take care of herself, because facing the truth is too much to bear.
"I wouldn't let anyone know that I was alone, I was staying right here."
But with the love of her grandmother and the letters she writes, can Aubrey begin to see that even though she's lost everything - all is not lost?
She will make you cry.
She will make you smile.
Aubrey willl stay with you forever.
As told above, Aubrey is all alone. She spent her days watching TV and eating cheese and crackers without anyone intruding, she even quite enjoyed it herself. The problem: she is eleven and no one knows that she's alone.
So that begins the story of Aubrey written by Suzanne LaFleur. The story of a little girl through the journey of hurt, isolation, loss, disappointment and grief; the story that tells us about how Aubrey was forced to face the 'adult' world; the feelings and emotions. It was definately heartbreaking yet touching. Aubrey found out what it's like when the people that she love turned their backs on her.
But...
With the help of her Gram's undying love and the unconditional friendship she made with her new neighbour, Bridget, Aubrey found herself taking baby steps to finally open her heart again to the world.
The book's story has a pretty simple question: are you ever too young to experience and to know the big, bad world?
Well, people expect childhood to be the time to play and laugh without a care to the world - carefree while making great memories.
Then there's the phase: young adulthood where poeple experience their first enemies, heartbreaks and secure friendships that are always tested.
But then again...
What happens if both of the worlds get mixed up and comes crashing down?
That is what happened to our dear little heroine: Aubrey Priestly.
Aubrey was thrust unexpectedly into the 'adult' world too soon for anyone's liking.
Suzanne wrote the story by a first person narrative and that makes it easier for us to reach out to Aubrey's character more as we are seeing with her own eyes - feeling the rush of emotions with her heart.
Remember she's 11 and so she's very confused with the feelings that she felt: the grief and the pain. She's too young and immature to know how to cope with such feelings.
She's prone to moodswings and flashes of painful memories about her family.
She's on the edge, tip toe-ing between the line of childhood and adulthood.
While her Gram tries to make her move on, she was still helplessly clinging to her memories of her little sister whom she took for granted by writing letters to Jilly, Savannah's imaginary friend who have once dominated their lives.
Even though the book seems to aim for a younger audience (as I read from other reviews) I would like to urge adults to read the book too. The book have a style that have a somewhat naivety tone that would draw adult readers to read: Aubrey doesn't understand what was happening and what she was feeling but as an adult who have more life experiences and have the maturity, we'd recognise what's happening from our 'grown-up's' point of view.
"Twelve is quite grown-up, Aubrey."
"Not really."
"After twelve is thirteen; is that grown-up?"
"I don't know," I said. I was a little confused about when you get to be grown up. Was it the time you took care of your mother or lived by yourself or bought your own groceries? I'd already done all those things. "I don't want to be grown up."
"No hurry," Gram said. "There's certainly no hurry."
I found myself crying, wanting to take Aubrey in my arms and start craddling her and tell her everything is going to be alright from the start of the book until the end. (If you could see me then, you'd know that this is not far-fetched.)
As we experience grief and pain in one way or another, we have friends and family to help us back to our feet but our little heroine here has to cope with the complicated feelings all by herself and that triggered my
Suzanne's writing is different from your usual grieving, 'misery memoire' copies that are stocked in the stores. Why? because the story was told in the eye of a child. The words are not filled with woeful descriptions and self-pity (Eck!), Aubrey's story is filled with innocent excursion of school, lessons, sleepovers, plays in the forest and all others that you need for a childhood except for the fact that there's a life's puzzle that plagues her, deep at the back of her mind - and she have to solve it without her parents' help. If I were to use the words 'profound' and 'raw' it would be too common and such but this isn't the case with this book. The words are meant for it.
I truly recommend this to everyone who has a love for this type of stories. (I don't know why but I love to torture myself and make myself cry by reading books like these.)
As the copy that I have right now is my sister's friend's, I'm going to buy a copy for myself. And I
If it wasn't for the different genre, it will definately top my ultimate favourite book. (Currently, it's sitting with HarryP)
I even finishes the book in one sitting! And the story even plagued in my mind for days (okay I read this on Thursday night) and it also in my dreams.
If any one of you have read it, I would love to hear from you about your opinions!
Labels: author: Suzanne LaFleur, subject: Love Aubrey, type: book review