Don't Let Anyone Look Down on You Because You Are Young

As you may have noticed in some of my previous posts: I have been fascinated lately with Point of View:  particularly when the POV is in direct contrast with the author’s gender and/or age.  This fascination is the reason I was originally attracted to Forever Silent.  Not because it is in contrast, but rather it is exactly the opposite of those I have been reading lately.  It was written from the POV of a High School boy, and the author was actually a 15-year-old boy himself.  How exciting!  Here I've been reading all these books about teenage boys and wondering if the author is getting it right... this is my chance to find out!

So POV may have been what attracted me, but it’s not what kept my interest.  This was actually a really good story.  If you hear a tone of surprise that is exactly what I meant.  I honestly didn’t expect such great writing by one so young. 

Now, you’re definitely not going to hear me putting J.K. Drew on par with Rowling, or Austen, but it was a very well thought out story and written nicely.  It was, however, not at all an easy read for me.  It deals with a teenage boy who loses his brother.  Not exactly something I want to face, but my one honest criticism is that I’m fairly certain that Drew was writing about something he has not dealt with himself.  I don’t think he has ever lost someone that close to him (at least I hope not and I would most definitely not wish it on him for anything).  I say this because I have been there.  I know the kind of emotions that come from that circumstance and Drew doesn’t truly convey that kind of agony in his writing.  It could be that he just hasn’t matured in his writing to show that sort of pain, but I hope it’s because he hasn’t felt it himself.

I do think that Drew does an excellent job showing us that we can all come through any pain and make the world around us a better place because of it.  I just think most of the time it takes a lot longer than his character took to make it back through to a healthy place.  

I would definitely recommend this book, especially to those aspiring to become young authors themselves.  I know that J.K. Drew has written several other books and I hope that he continues to write.  He shows real promise.

(FYI- The Title of this post is a quote from the Bible:  1 Timothy 4:12)