Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This book was a punch in the gut as a fifth grader nearly thirty years ago. As an adult it's a beating with a padlock in a sock. Just non-stop blow after blow because now after college English classes you know about things like foreshadowing and symbolism and dramatic irony and YOU SEE IT COMING FROM MILES AWAY AND CAN DO NOTHING TO STOP IT. I've read Martin. I'm used to not getting attached to vibrant, likable characters. But this still hits harder than the Red Wedding. Especially the aftermath. Because you're an adult now and your adult fears are different than your fears as a kid. This only heightens the contrast between Jesse's juvenile fear of falling into the creek and the reader's more mature fear of losing a loved one and makes the characters' pain stand out in that much more stark a contrast. And that's not even getting into the theme of "If I had only..." that Jesse struggles with when he wakes in the night. If I had only asked her. If I had only thought of someone else. If I had only seen what was right in front of me instead of yearning for that which I cannot have. We've all had those moments, and we've all thought of what we could have done differently. The stakes are not always as high, but we are terrifyingly aware that we don't know when they might be. The prose is exceedingly well-written. It's clear, almost matter-of-fact. Echoes of Narnia can be felt in Terebithia, especially in the Pine Grove. But the narrator never talks down to the reader. We see the world, and Leslie, through Jesse's eyes, but the story is far from childish. It doesn't pull its punches, but it takes care to show us beauty, too. It should still come with a warning label and a box of kleenex, though. Not gonna lie; at almost 40 this one broke me, and I ain't even ashamed.