Waves

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

For fifteen-year-old Hal Ditton and his family, summer has always meant six glorious weeks by the sea. But this year is different - Charley, Hal's sister, is lying in a coma. When the troubled family makes the difficult decision to return to their holiday home without her, Hal finds it harder than anyone to shake off his elder sister's presence. In fact, Hal's mind is crowded with thoughts of Charley, and the events that led to her accident on the beach last summer - thoughts which, he comes to realise, are not entirely his own.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Gothic romance fans will eagerly dive into this eerie debut novel, which traces the ethereal connection between Hal, a British teen, and his comatose older sister, Charley. While 15-year-old Charley hovers between life and death in a hospital, her body-kept alive by machines-remains motionless, but her mind is active ("It's as though the Earth is holding me down, packed tight in gravity," she laments). Meanwhile, Hal seems able to read some of his sister's thoughts. His feeling that Charley is trying to communicate with him grows stronger once he returns to the family's vacation house, where Charley's nearly lifeless body washed up on the shore the previous summer. ("From somewhere far away, I think I can hear... her hospital breath, falling over me in waves," says he). At the same time that Hal feels a burning urgency to solve the mystery of his sister's accident, he finds himself attracted to freckle-faced Jackie, whose brother may hold the key to what happened to Charley in the sea. A series of flashbacks convey the perspectives of both Hal and Charley, as Dogar artistically parallels two budding romances. Hal's infatuation with Jackie neatly mirrors the relationship Charley had with Jackie's brother, Pete. Although foreshadowing weighs heavily on the story line and Charley's frequent bemoanings about being trapped inside her body sometimes veer towards melodrama, teens intrigued by supernatural events will likely not be bothered by the book's less than subtle aspects. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 8 Up-"I'm in a cupboard. A dark cupboard, and it's too small for me. The walls press against my flesh-.Through a chink of light where the door is barely open, I think I can hear voices. So many voices. Help me!" These are the unspoken words of Hal's sister Charley, lying in a coma ever since the previous summer's late-night surfing accident on a Cornwall beach. Now it is July once again and Hal's family is off to Brackinton Haven for their annual holiday, leaving Charley behind for the first time. Torn between his anger at his sister for devastating the family and his desire to discover exactly what happened, Hal hears her voice more and more often. As he gets to know the surfer crowd that Charley hung out with and begins a romance with the younger sister of Charley's boyfriend, Hal slowly begins to unravel the mystery. Told in a series of episodes with headings such as "Charley. Then," "Charley. Hospital. Now," and "Hal. Graveyard. Now," the narrative skillfully shifts in time and point of view. Readers of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (Little, Brown, 2002) and Peter Dickinson's Eva (Delacorte, 1989) will be intrigued by Dogar's exploration of such questions as: Where exactly is a person when she no longer inhabits her earthly body? Can she communicate with those she has left behind? Both suspenseful and thoughtful, action packed and atmospheric, this novel is compelling and memorable.-Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Dogar will make more than a glancing impression on teens with this elaborately structured debut, encompassing grief, suspense, romance, and emotional bonds so intense they slip past the usual boundaries of consciousness. At the novel's center are the unknown events that left 15-year-old Charley washed up on a Cornwall beach, comatose. The following summer, her bereft family returns to the same seaside community, where younger brother Hal begins, inexplicably, to channel his hospitalized sister's memories, connecting her injury to the brother of the girl he loves. The fragmented narrative leaps chaotically among Charley's, Hal's, and their telepathically fused perspectives, and not every reader will buy the supernatural elements. But teens who don't balk at nonlinear narratives will sink into Dogar's lyrical, free-associative writing, as expressive about tender romantic moments (such as the sharing of breath, sweet and close and tangling ) as it is about the burden of loss, like being stuck in a half-life, like some nuclear dump, with millions of years to go before the poison burns itself away. --Jennifer Mattson Copyright 2006 Booklist

Horn Book Review

Memories of his older sister's accident the year before haunt fifteen-year-old Hal when his family returns to the seaside site of the tragedy. As Hal tries to piece together what happened (assisted by his sister's voice in his head) he also falls in love. Tragedy and romance are entwined in this eerie story. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

Every year, Hal's family vacations at their summer home in Brackinton on England's coast. However, things are different this year: His spirited older sister Charley won't be there, and the family's return means painfully revisiting the site of Charley's mysterious accident, which left her comatose. From the moment Hal returns to Brackinton, Charley's thoughts eerily start mixing with his own urging him to remember the details of her accident. With the help of Jack, Hal's crush and the younger sister of Charley's boyfriend, Hal learns to listen closely to Charley's disembodied voice and to piece together memories of that fateful night until he finally understands the shocking truth behind Charley's accident. Skillfully narrated through Hal and Charley's alternating voices and thoughts, Dogar frequently and seamlessly shifts between time and place to create a haunting mystery packed with suffering, hope and personal growth. Riveting. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.