Due for release by Egmont in May 2017, Joelsen’s debut is a feel-good, dare I say it whimsical, story. I do not mean that response to sound so negative. As I was reading the story, I was desperate for the happy ending, and for things to work out as they did – but it all felt rather too neat once I’d had a little time to reflect on this.
The story is told through the voice of fourteen year old Jemma, a girl with severe cerebral palsy, who is unable to communicate with anyone. Yet do not make the mistake that many people who meet Jemma make…she is not stupid; she is totally sentient and she is a wry observer of the goings on around her. She simply cannot tell anyone about her experience or observations, and her frustration oozes from the page.
We are given privileged access into her mind, and her voice shines through the story. I loved the way she relays some of the issues of living with cerebral palsy without it turning into a pity-fest. She is a shrewd judge of character and her observations about her foster family and the other characters she interacts with were humorous. It is when she comes face to face with Dan, the boyfriend of her carer, right at the start of the book that we are given some indication that there is more to this than an attempt to raise awareness of living with disability.
Dan – convinced Jemma will never be able to communicate with those around her – is a very different character once he is left alone with her. In the best pantomime villain fashion he struts around Jemma’s living room or hospital room, making threats and revealing his prejudice (but only when he thinks nobody else is there to hear him). For this alone I would gladly have applauded all manner of nasty things happening to him. But Dan shares a big secret with Jemma. One that he can’t afford for anyone else to know. It’s such a shame that as we near the climax of the novel Jemma just so happens to come into contact with some wonderful researchers who are trialling a new method of communication that Jemma is actually able to use…yes, we know exactly where this is going, but we want it to happen and don’t care about how unlikely some of these events are. It all makes perfect sense at the time.
A huge thank you to Joelsen, along with Egmont and NetGalley, for allowing me the opportunity to read an ARC of this. Up there with ‘Wonder’ as one to get people talking…