Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff
The Blurb On The Back:
Mila has a gift.
She can read a room, a person, a situation - and tell if you’re happy, or pregnant, or having an affair.
When her father’s best friend, Matthew, goes missing, Mila joins in the search. She sees clues no one else notices, facts everyone else overlooks.
But the answers refuse to line up and Matthew refuses to be found.
Is there something Mila has missed? Something closer to home than she ever imagined?
12-year-old Mila is incredibly perceptive. She can read rooms, people and situations - seeing the clues that other people miss to discover hidden information. She’s due to spend the Easter holidays in New York state with her father, Gil. They’re staying with Gil’s best friend, Matthew but a couple of days before they arrive, Matthew’s wife Suzanne phones to say that Matthew’s disappeared. Gil and Mila decide to go anyway and set off on a road trip to track Matthew down. On the way Mila applies her unique abilities and starts to gather answers but none of them makes sense and she can’t help but feel that she’s missing something important …
Meg Rosoff’s YA novel is a finely observed story that’s part coming-of-age piece about a 12 year old girl starting her journey to adulthood and part road-trip about a father and daughter getting to know each other better. Mila is a unique character - in some ways older than her years but still young enough to worry about the on-again/off-again friendship he has with the unhappy Cat who’s ditched her for some cooler older kids. I completely believed in Mila’s growing appreciation of the reasons for Cat’s behaviour and I found their text exchanges to be touching. I equally enjoyed the relationship between Mila and her father, the absent-minded translator Gil, through whom she learns about his friendship with Matthew and how this prejudices her against the sharp-tongued Suzanne who’s hiding secrets of her own. Given the age of the protagonist and the focus on grown-up’s secrets, I do question to what extent this fits within the YA category but it’s such a gripping read that I think teenage readers will be as hooked as I was. Ultimately this is another clever, unique and well-written book from the constantly excellent Rosoff and I very much look forward to seeing what she produces next.
Mila’s voice is brilliant - sharp, knowing and a little cynical. She notices everything and is able to extrapolate from it and it’s interesting how much her father values and relies on that skill. My favourite scenes in the book are those between Gil and Mila where they talk about the situation with Matthew and his reasons for disappearing, partly because Gil treats her like an adult but partly because Mila expects to be treated as an adult even as she doesn’t want to take on those responsibilities.
The Verdict:
Meg Rosoff’s YA novel is a finely observed story that’s part coming-of-age piece about a 12 year old girl starting her journey to adulthood and part road-trip about a father and daughter getting to know each other better. Mila is a unique character - in some ways older than her years but still young enough to worry about the on-again/off-again friendship he has with the unhappy Cat who’s ditched her for some cooler older kids. I completely believed in Mila’s growing appreciation of the reasons for Cat’s behaviour and I found their text exchanges to be touching. I equally enjoyed the relationship between Mila and her father, the absent-minded translator Gil, through whom she learns about his friendship with Matthew and how this prejudices her against the sharp-tongued Suzanne who’s hiding secrets of her own. Given the age of the protagonist and the focus on grown-up’s secrets, I do question to what extent this fits within the YA category but it’s such a gripping read that I think teenage readers will be as hooked as I was. Ultimately this is another clever, unique and well-written book from the constantly excellent Rosoff and I very much look forward to seeing what she produces next.
Mila has a gift.
She can read a room, a person, a situation - and tell if you’re happy, or pregnant, or having an affair.
When her father’s best friend, Matthew, goes missing, Mila joins in the search. She sees clues no one else notices, facts everyone else overlooks.
But the answers refuse to line up and Matthew refuses to be found.
Is there something Mila has missed? Something closer to home than she ever imagined?
12-year-old Mila is incredibly perceptive. She can read rooms, people and situations - seeing the clues that other people miss to discover hidden information. She’s due to spend the Easter holidays in New York state with her father, Gil. They’re staying with Gil’s best friend, Matthew but a couple of days before they arrive, Matthew’s wife Suzanne phones to say that Matthew’s disappeared. Gil and Mila decide to go anyway and set off on a road trip to track Matthew down. On the way Mila applies her unique abilities and starts to gather answers but none of them makes sense and she can’t help but feel that she’s missing something important …
Meg Rosoff’s YA novel is a finely observed story that’s part coming-of-age piece about a 12 year old girl starting her journey to adulthood and part road-trip about a father and daughter getting to know each other better. Mila is a unique character - in some ways older than her years but still young enough to worry about the on-again/off-again friendship he has with the unhappy Cat who’s ditched her for some cooler older kids. I completely believed in Mila’s growing appreciation of the reasons for Cat’s behaviour and I found their text exchanges to be touching. I equally enjoyed the relationship between Mila and her father, the absent-minded translator Gil, through whom she learns about his friendship with Matthew and how this prejudices her against the sharp-tongued Suzanne who’s hiding secrets of her own. Given the age of the protagonist and the focus on grown-up’s secrets, I do question to what extent this fits within the YA category but it’s such a gripping read that I think teenage readers will be as hooked as I was. Ultimately this is another clever, unique and well-written book from the constantly excellent Rosoff and I very much look forward to seeing what she produces next.
Mila’s voice is brilliant - sharp, knowing and a little cynical. She notices everything and is able to extrapolate from it and it’s interesting how much her father values and relies on that skill. My favourite scenes in the book are those between Gil and Mila where they talk about the situation with Matthew and his reasons for disappearing, partly because Gil treats her like an adult but partly because Mila expects to be treated as an adult even as she doesn’t want to take on those responsibilities.
The Verdict:
Meg Rosoff’s YA novel is a finely observed story that’s part coming-of-age piece about a 12 year old girl starting her journey to adulthood and part road-trip about a father and daughter getting to know each other better. Mila is a unique character - in some ways older than her years but still young enough to worry about the on-again/off-again friendship he has with the unhappy Cat who’s ditched her for some cooler older kids. I completely believed in Mila’s growing appreciation of the reasons for Cat’s behaviour and I found their text exchanges to be touching. I equally enjoyed the relationship between Mila and her father, the absent-minded translator Gil, through whom she learns about his friendship with Matthew and how this prejudices her against the sharp-tongued Suzanne who’s hiding secrets of her own. Given the age of the protagonist and the focus on grown-up’s secrets, I do question to what extent this fits within the YA category but it’s such a gripping read that I think teenage readers will be as hooked as I was. Ultimately this is another clever, unique and well-written book from the constantly excellent Rosoff and I very much look forward to seeing what she produces next.