tyrex117's review against another edition
3.0
Read as part of the BBC’s Big Read Poll - [89/133]
Jade and Vicky are best friends, inseparable, until Vicky dies when she is struck by a car. But even the little problem of being dead won’t keep these girls apart…
Jacqueline Wilson is a master when it comes to writing for children. Her works are usually aimed at a young audience, with her being particularly popular with 7 – 10 year olds. She masterfully addresses difficult themes and subjects in her works and Vicky Angel tackles the necessary conversation of death and bereavement when a life is taken all too soon.
Best friends, Vicky and Jade, have been joined at the hip for as long as the girls can remember. Vicky is loud, popular and excitable. Jade is happy to follow Vicky around, admiring her friend’s confidence. Jade is the first to admit that this relationship has been marginally one-sided in the past. Vicky’s domineering personality crushes Jade’s gentle mannerisms, and on occasion, Vicky has told Jade what to do, how to live and who to talk to. One day, Jade stands up for herself, arguing that she should be able to join whatever club she wants without Vicky begrudging her. However, during this argument, Vicky steps out onto the road without looking and is hit by a car. Yet Jade is not left alone to deal with her grief. Vicky comes back as a ghost, but only Jade can see and hear her.
I enjoyed reading this book. I became invested in Jade’s feelings and emotions, and Wilson writes in such simple, yet elegant prose. She conveys the raw truth behind grief with incredible accuracy and portrays an import message through the school’s counsellor that everyone deals with bereavement differently. Jade’s emotions and reactions were realistic and I read on to see how Jade would come to terms with Vicky’s passing, hoping that she would come through the other side.
As I’ve found with Wilson’s stories, these are never straightforward, but are multi-layered discussions. This next part could be considered a spoiler, so I’ve hidden it for anyone who hasn’t yet read the book.
The novel is quite pacey. At only 160 pages, it is quite possible to read this in a day. I had to space my reading out due to work commitments, but in a way, this allowed me to digest the story from a more analytical stand point. I remember reading this before when I was much younger, probably still at primary school, and I remember not liking it. My viewpoint has changed slightly with my maturity. However, I have awarded this three stars instead of four purely because of the aspect I discussed in the spoiler. Read away though, as it definitely deserves to be devoured by Wilson’s target audience.
Jade and Vicky are best friends, inseparable, until Vicky dies when she is struck by a car. But even the little problem of being dead won’t keep these girls apart…
Jacqueline Wilson is a master when it comes to writing for children. Her works are usually aimed at a young audience, with her being particularly popular with 7 – 10 year olds. She masterfully addresses difficult themes and subjects in her works and Vicky Angel tackles the necessary conversation of death and bereavement when a life is taken all too soon.
Best friends, Vicky and Jade, have been joined at the hip for as long as the girls can remember. Vicky is loud, popular and excitable. Jade is happy to follow Vicky around, admiring her friend’s confidence. Jade is the first to admit that this relationship has been marginally one-sided in the past. Vicky’s domineering personality crushes Jade’s gentle mannerisms, and on occasion, Vicky has told Jade what to do, how to live and who to talk to. One day, Jade stands up for herself, arguing that she should be able to join whatever club she wants without Vicky begrudging her. However, during this argument, Vicky steps out onto the road without looking and is hit by a car. Yet Jade is not left alone to deal with her grief. Vicky comes back as a ghost, but only Jade can see and hear her.
I enjoyed reading this book. I became invested in Jade’s feelings and emotions, and Wilson writes in such simple, yet elegant prose. She conveys the raw truth behind grief with incredible accuracy and portrays an import message through the school’s counsellor that everyone deals with bereavement differently. Jade’s emotions and reactions were realistic and I read on to see how Jade would come to terms with Vicky’s passing, hoping that she would come through the other side.
As I’ve found with Wilson’s stories, these are never straightforward, but are multi-layered discussions. This next part could be considered a spoiler, so I’ve hidden it for anyone who hasn’t yet read the book.
Spoiler
Wilson explores the impact of abusive relationships in adolescence and also considers abusive relationships in connection to grief. I mentioned briefly earlier that Vicky would often tell Jade how to live her life. In death, this gets worse. Vicky demands that Jade is rude to people who are reaching out to be her friend, she distracts Jade by shouting and dancing around when adults are talking to her and she will attack her of a night to make her fearful. Ghost Vicky becomes ten times worse than alive Vicky. She alienates Jade when she is most vulnerable and for Jade, coming to terms with her grief is as much about coming to terms with an abusive relationship. Jade feels responsible for Vicky’s death, the thought process being ‘if I hadn’t argued with her, Vicky wouldn’t have stepped into the road. She'd still be alive.’ It’s quite difficult to read through some of these passages when you just want Jade to forget about the bully that Vicky becomes.The novel is quite pacey. At only 160 pages, it is quite possible to read this in a day. I had to space my reading out due to work commitments, but in a way, this allowed me to digest the story from a more analytical stand point. I remember reading this before when I was much younger, probably still at primary school, and I remember not liking it. My viewpoint has changed slightly with my maturity. However, I have awarded this three stars instead of four purely because of the aspect I discussed in the spoiler. Read away though, as it definitely deserves to be devoured by Wilson’s target audience.
helenephoebe's review against another edition
3.0
ISBN? – 9780440864158
Themes – Death / Bereavement / School / Friendship / Ghosts / Bullying
Recommend? – Yes, I loved it!
Themes – Death / Bereavement / School / Friendship / Ghosts / Bullying
Recommend? – Yes, I loved it!
missbb2015's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
indecisivepancake16's review
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
ash_pj21's review
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
sallycacchi's review
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
222veronika222's review
4.0
Literally to bolo o jej kamke co zomrela a target audience su 11+ dievčatá
reginacattus's review
3.0
A long-term fan of Wilson's books, I have read this book many times throughout my childhood. It was an odd book, but the authors writing style, as always, really made me connect with the characters.
aotora's review
1.0
I picked up this book again after years of it laying on my shelf. As much as I love Wilson this feels like a weak book to me even though I rated it positively before. I am not sure if I have grown or if something else happened but this book just felt bland and rushed.
The main character Jade is dealing with the sudden loss of her best friend who dies in an accident and is hit by a car- her death feels somewhat rushed, she is laying on the ground, Jade is next to her, they go to the hospital, Jade is sitting in a hospital and Vickey is dead. The nurses feel weird and out of place considering that they don't really think about helping the obviously distressed child and when Jade runs out of the hospital they just let her go without even calling her parents.
Speaking of the parents: Vicky's parents are barely in the story and I really wish that we saw more of how they felt after the death of their only daughter and how they dealt with the grief, however we see that one scene where Vickey's mom gets mad at Jade for being alive and they hug it out and grieve together and then we never see those parents again. Jade's parents are constantly fighting and very distant, when her teacher comes to them telling them that Jade needs help they get mad and they never really care to address their child's grieving or the fact that she lost her best friend aside from the mother constantly saying that Vickey was a bad influence and father constantly saying that she was the best little girl ever in an almost creepy way. We also have two small plots happening with mom seeing someone else and him lying about having a happy family life- she receives the letter from his wife in the end and ends up ending things and mentioning that she might switch work because she doesn't want to see him daily but that doesn't go anywhere and the father mentions that he wants to switch jobs because he doesn't want to work at night anymore because it's affecting his relationships with his family - mom talks about the divorce through the entire book but in the end they do a complete 180 and just become a happy family- no build up, no nothing they go from fighting to being a perfect family in no time at all.
Main point of this book is grieving, Jade is distressed and she is seeing Vickey's ghost who is as controlling as she was before death. She is extremely possessive and doesn't want Jade to make new friends, so it in turn causes Jade to be very resentful and rude to everyone and pushing people away- people are surprisingly forgiving though and they go from not wanting to talk to her and talking about her being mad behind her back to suddenly being her best friends. She also does the counselling but we only see about two sessions before that's resolved and she is suddenly done grieving. And the ending came up way too fast too imo, she goes to the court, realizes that it's her fault because she pushed Vickey when they had an argument, she runs out of court without anybody stopping her, nearly gets hit by a car, Vickey pushes her out of the way, she learns that it isn't her fault because Vickey was the one running in front of the car and she didn't push her, Vickey becomes and angel and that's the end of the book- that all goes down on the last two to three pages so that felt way too rushed and like the author really wanted to end this book fast.
It's not a bad book but it's not a good book either, I love Wilson and her books but this one was a really weak one.
The main character Jade is dealing with the sudden loss of her best friend who dies in an accident and is hit by a car- her death feels somewhat rushed, she is laying on the ground, Jade is next to her, they go to the hospital, Jade is sitting in a hospital and Vickey is dead. The nurses feel weird and out of place considering that they don't really think about helping the obviously distressed child and when Jade runs out of the hospital they just let her go without even calling her parents.
Speaking of the parents: Vicky's parents are barely in the story and I really wish that we saw more of how they felt after the death of their only daughter and how they dealt with the grief, however we see that one scene where Vickey's mom gets mad at Jade for being alive and they hug it out and grieve together and then we never see those parents again. Jade's parents are constantly fighting and very distant, when her teacher comes to them telling them that Jade needs help they get mad and they never really care to address their child's grieving or the fact that she lost her best friend aside from the mother constantly saying that Vickey was a bad influence and father constantly saying that she was the best little girl ever in an almost creepy way. We also have two small plots happening with mom seeing someone else and him lying about having a happy family life- she receives the letter from his wife in the end and ends up ending things and mentioning that she might switch work because she doesn't want to see him daily but that doesn't go anywhere and the father mentions that he wants to switch jobs because he doesn't want to work at night anymore because it's affecting his relationships with his family - mom talks about the divorce through the entire book but in the end they do a complete 180 and just become a happy family- no build up, no nothing they go from fighting to being a perfect family in no time at all.
Main point of this book is grieving, Jade is distressed and she is seeing Vickey's ghost who is as controlling as she was before death. She is extremely possessive and doesn't want Jade to make new friends, so it in turn causes Jade to be very resentful and rude to everyone and pushing people away- people are surprisingly forgiving though and they go from not wanting to talk to her and talking about her being mad behind her back to suddenly being her best friends. She also does the counselling but we only see about two sessions before that's resolved and she is suddenly done grieving. And the ending came up way too fast too imo, she goes to the court, realizes that it's her fault because she pushed Vickey when they had an argument, she runs out of court without anybody stopping her, nearly gets hit by a car, Vickey pushes her out of the way, she learns that it isn't her fault because Vickey was the one running in front of the car and she didn't push her, Vickey becomes and angel and that's the end of the book- that all goes down on the last two to three pages so that felt way too rushed and like the author really wanted to end this book fast.
It's not a bad book but it's not a good book either, I love Wilson and her books but this one was a really weak one.
shahrun's review against another edition
5.0
This book packs a powerful punch. It explores dealing with a bereavement and the guilt of the living. Quite a clever idea writing it down in a story and not a list of stages to follow. I love the pictures too.