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Infinite Sky CJ Flood C J Flood 9780857078025 Books

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Infinite Sky CJ Flood C J Flood 9780857078025 Books

I loved this book and it was a five star read for me right up until the last 20%.

Reasons I loved it:

1. British setting - so refreshing and quaint and beautifully written
2. Younger female MC - I really appreciated the character's innocence and how she grows over the course of the story
3. Gypsies - I'm a sucker for stories involving gypsies
4. The character dynamics - a brilliant cast of strong individuals all facing their own challenges
5. The romance - the romance was handled beautifully and age appropriately and I really adored the young couple.

Things I intensely Disliked:

1. The mother - I just don't understand how any mother could do what she did.
2. The last 20% - there is a lot of build-up and I knew something bad was going to happen but I didn't expect *spoiler* the last quarter of the book to descended into a depressing mush that left some of the critical relationships in the story dangling without resolution. I thought the hospital and funeral scenes were dragged out to milk the reader's emotions, but instead of making me hurt/sympathise/feel for the characters, it just made me wish the story would hurry up and end the melodrama */spoiler*
3. The ending - after such an amazing, touching, gentle, beautiful story, I found that ending completely dissatisfying, that the story took a turn down a path it didn't need to go and that story would've been just as poignant and moving had it not involved *spoiler* the death of a loved one, which seemed to eclipse and undermine everything else in the story */spoiler.

I'd love to read more by CJ Flood, loved the prose and loved the characters, just didn't love the way the story ended.


Tags : Infinite Sky. C.J Flood [C. J. Flood] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.,C. J. Flood,Infinite Sky. C.J Flood,Simon & Schuster Children's,085707802X

Infinite Sky CJ Flood C J Flood 9780857078025 Books Reviews

The one-page prologue tells us that there will be a funeral for a boy and then asks whether it is possible to love someone who kills someone you love. After that provocative page, we settle into what seems to be a fairly standard coming-of-age story set in England. Thirteen-year-old Iris is out of school for the summer and trying to cope with her mother's abandonment of the family. The mother has gone off to Tunisia and calls every so often to report on her new life. Meanwhile, Iris, her older brother, and her father are left behind to carry on. Both males have difficulty with their anger in light of the mother's departure.

One day, a group arrives on Iris's father's property. The group, called at various times in the book Gypsies or travelers, upset Iris's father. Iris, however, becomes quite close to Trick, a boy with the new group. The two of them form a clandestine relationship that seems to represent to both a true connection. Each finds in the other a nonjudgmental friend, and they spend many happy hours together in corn fields, ponds, and other settings. Of course, we know that this idyllic state of affairs cannot last given the prologue, but I won't take the plot further.

"Infinite Sky" is told through Iris's voice, and author C.J. Flood seems to have found an authentic thirteen-year-old girl's voice here. The pace of the book is reasonably slow, something I see other reviewers objected to. I get that objection. Part of the slowness of the pace seems to be the lack of differentiation. Iris's brother seems perpetually angry, as does Iris's father, for example, and this fact makes each chapter seem somewhat similar to the preceding one, at least for a while. At the same time, though, I thought the pace worked. "Infinite Sky" is only slightly more than 200 pages, so we're not talking about an interminable slog through tedium. Rather, it's a chance to get to know Iris and Trick and to let their relationship develop at a reasonable pace. On balance, I think the pacing works.
Iris, who lives in England, is having a tough summer holiday. Her mother left to "find herself" three months ago and is traveling around Tunisia in a van. Her father, the tree surgeon, is not handling the desertion well and drinks himself into a stupor every night. Her big brother, Sam, has shaved all his hair off and is hanging out with a rough crowd.

And Iris is tired of them all and just wants some sanity back in her life. Then she meets Trick, a boy who has moved onto their paddock with his family of Irish Travelers. And they become friends and maybe a bit more.

I liked that the story was told in Iris' voice and I was able to follow her journey through these difficult days.

I wish there hadn't been as much information in the prologue of the book and the blurb on the back of the book. By having the information from those two sources, it was kind of like waiting for a train wreck. I knew it was coming and couldn't turn away.

I liked Iris' tale even though sad. I liked the first romance portions of the book, which were tender and sweet.

There is some tough subject matter in this story - desertion, drinking, divorce, prejudice - but I thought author Flood handled them well.

This isn't an easy story to read but it is a fulfilling one.

The book shows that it is written for ages 12 years old and up. Note that there is profanity in the book,along with teen drinking and smoking.
I loved this book and it was a five star read for me right up until the last 20%.

Reasons I loved it

1. British setting - so refreshing and quaint and beautifully written
2. Younger female MC - I really appreciated the character's innocence and how she grows over the course of the story
3. Gypsies - I'm a sucker for stories involving gypsies
4. The character dynamics - a brilliant cast of strong individuals all facing their own challenges
5. The romance - the romance was handled beautifully and age appropriately and I really adored the young couple.

Things I intensely Disliked

1. The mother - I just don't understand how any mother could do what she did.
2. The last 20% - there is a lot of build-up and I knew something bad was going to happen but I didn't expect *spoiler* the last quarter of the book to descended into a depressing mush that left some of the critical relationships in the story dangling without resolution. I thought the hospital and funeral scenes were dragged out to milk the reader's emotions, but instead of making me hurt/sympathise/feel for the characters, it just made me wish the story would hurry up and end the melodrama */spoiler*
3. The ending - after such an amazing, touching, gentle, beautiful story, I found that ending completely dissatisfying, that the story took a turn down a path it didn't need to go and that story would've been just as poignant and moving had it not involved *spoiler* the death of a loved one, which seemed to eclipse and undermine everything else in the story */spoiler.

I'd love to read more by CJ Flood, loved the prose and loved the characters, just didn't love the way the story ended.