The story of Tom Brennan won the mature readers (teenage) category at this years’ Children Book Council of Australia awards. It is told from the perspective of 17 year old Tom Brennan whose brother Daniel recently caused a car accident killing two people and putting another in a wheelchair. The Brennans are forced to move from their small country town to live with Tom’s Catholic grandmother and Tom is forced to leave his beloved Rugby team.
The book shows how Tom and the other members of his family deal with the situation in their different ways. There are clashes between them as they try to recover and there are times when they begin to grow closer again. I found the book to be very well written and quite moving at times. My only complaint is that the ending was a bit too neat. The general concept of the ending was fine, but some of the specifics lacked a bit.
Overall a really good read, even if you’re not a teenager.
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OMG the book was really good..
But the ending was not conclusive to me…
I think if there was a movie I would love to
play Chrissy Tulake..and I agree with MELE there
aren’t tongans with the last name TULAKE because it
isn’t TONGAN..LOL..how weird..
I wonder what provoked he to use tongan people in the
book…
but yeah..
Im not going to be racist like my fellow tongan up there
but I’m just going to say that the book was a really good read and very suspenseful I couldn’t stop reading but that was probably because I had to for english…
HOW WEIRD IN YR10 YOU PEOPLE ARE READING IT???
DAMNNN I’M READING IT FOR MY HSC HOW WEIRD…
Anyways READ THE BOOK IT’S OK!!!
…………………………………..
we have to read it for school in grade 10
we even had to do a debate about it!
okay book, more for guys though
not much actually happens
i’m meant to be writing an essay on it but i don’t have the book, my teacher does, so i don’t have the quotes i need!!!
so annoyed
i read ‘the red cardigan’ and another book by JC Burke and they were definitely better
no football or rugby or whatever you want to call it!
had to read in english(yr 10)
thought it would be shit but it wasn’t too bad and i was actually a bit interested but i found the swearing was ova used and a bit of a turn off, also i thought sometimes the characters were immature for their age.
i read this for year 10 english…. i really liked the book but the ending of it wasn’t very good. i also think that the family overreacted a little they act as if daniel died but he just went to jail i thought that the accident was going to be a whole lot badder than what it was. but otherwise the book is a good read
I read this book of my own choice in year 8, and enjoyed immensely.
I then had to study it for year 10, and I agree it is less enjoyable when you are forced to read something.
I didn’t agree with the ending though, I thought it was out of tune with the feel and such of thte rest of the novel.
i thought this book was sik i wanked to it was so awesom. i would bone crissy tulake
Im the same as gorgina.
i Need some quotes!
one about Tess and how tom sees her and stuff.
P.S i really loved this book, and im very picky as i read twilight BEFORE it was cool and havnt found an intrigueing book since but this one almost fits the marks.
I hate to state the obvious, but the best place to find some quotes would be in the book.
I read the book over three years ago, so I’m afraid I can’t give you any off the top of my head.
i found this book OK
wasn’t bad … wasn’t extremely good
i do agree though that this book does give a great insight into a teenagers life because i know what it is like to experience a close loss in the family and the painful grieving process that all humans go through
great moral though
alot of thought
i hate this book im up to the third chapter and im bored out of my skull its such a drag i hate it so much
Pretty good read. The ending was a bit mundane though. Out of 10, I’d rate it, about 7.
i agree with gab as it is a great insight how a family grieves a loss. well written. liked it apart from the ending which i found very dissapointing and gives the impression of tom being all good again because he had sex. even my english teacher hated it and told the whole class so.
hey i need a chapter by chapter summary symmeryy…
Bet not many of you guys knew J.C Burke is a GIRL. BOOM SIT THE FUCK DOOOWN!
lawl I did that for year 11.
good book read in for year 9 english
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