The Sidekicks
Will Kostakis
Ryan, Harley and Miles have a single thing in common – Isaac. What each doesn’t realise is that their individual relationships with Isaac are build on different premises, but could still work out ok. Life keeps moving while you’re recovering, and the lives of these boys move particularly rapidly.
I admit I had difficulty remembering which character was which for the majority of the novel. Not the main characters, but the side ones (haha). The abbreviations of their names tripped me up.
Each character rehashes some of what came before in their chapter. The author has done a fabulous job of twining these together and making a whole out of what could have been disjointed text. Each of the characters has their own particular voice, which is very important to me.
What I enjoyed about this novel was that there was no expectation of explanations for Isaac’s behaviour, and little-to-no blame on the other characters. In the end, it is the person who has taken drugs/alcohol/other who’s responsibility it is to look after their health.
I can’t believe how many teen issues Kostakis managed to cram into this novel and yet still make a beautiful piece of fiction that reads well. Being gay, having different parental relationships, drinking, college, the whole works.
4 stars from me. We need more literature like this for teenagers, boys and girls alike. The more I think about this novel, the more I like it.
Elspeth goes from a lonely loner to someone who dares to have friends. Funny how losing everything seems to do that to a person. She progresses rapidly from someone only concerned about saving herself to someone who can and will help others. It’s that transformation that brought me back to this novel over and over again.
I always wanted more. It wasn’t enough for me that Stephanie’s brother was dead. I wanted the gruesome details. And it wasn’t enough that her mother wept, or that there was something interesting going on in the deal with her grandparents, that we never found out about.
The back of the novel simply didn’t pull me in, but I took it with me somewhere and I couldn’t sleep, so of course this got read! It should have said something more about past lives, and then it would have gotten me straight away.
I didn’t feel a distinction between the perspectives of Lowell and Lycaea. This is a common complaint of mine. Also, for a couple of chapters I didn’t realise that Lowell was a boy. Honestly, I thought it could have gone either way. Lowell isn’t depicted as a fighter, and Lycaea certainly breaks any stereotypes of a passive woman. Kick-ass!
I put off reading this novel because it sounded like yet another ‘Spiritual Quest’ novel that wanted to tell me how to live my life. Instead I found a fiction that was just how the blurb announced it. The only problem was that the blurb read more as an advertising brief than a quick summary of the text.
Oh man, oh man. Where do I get started with this? The jazz and soul music promised to me by the author, or the attractive cover? Or both? I found myself hooked in, with the music and lyrics speaking to me and tying in nicely with the delicious cover. I didn’t feel ashamed of taking it out in public, and in fact read it instead of doing house renovations!
I’m pretty sure rescuing her mother from alcoholism in this method would be illegal… And I’m not sure how it would work. But in the context of the novel? Hell yeah! Bossing! Good work Kirra. For a stressed and ‘weak’ person such as Kirra, she has a real spine when she needs to. She just needs to be reminded that if you’re at the bottom, the only way is up.
This was impressive because Petraitis had obviously done her work well (as she has in her other books, which I now want to get my hands on), and she places the emphasis on the human touch. Humans are fallible, and criminal ones even more so. The book also highlighted the impact on police officers’ family lives in the days after a crime.