Title: Winter DamageAuthor: Natasha Carthew
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's
Published Date: August 1st 2013
Genre: YA, Survival, Dystopian,
Page Count: 320
Format: Hardcover
My Rating: ★ ★ ★
Goodreads Summary:
On a frozen Cornish moor, a fifteen-year-old girl lives in a trailer with her dad and little brother. Ennor's mother left years ago, when things started to go wrong - and gradually their world has fallen apart. Now her father's gravely ill, school has closed, and Ennor knows they're going to take her brother away if things don't pick up soon. So three days before Christmas, when the wind is cold and her dad's health takes a turn for the worse, Ennor packs a blanket, a map, a saucepan and a gun into her rucksack, and sets off to find her mum and bring her home. Ennor thinks she knows where she's going. But this journey will change her life for ever - it becomes a battle for survival, a heartbreaking story of love and friendship, and a fable about not finding what you were looking for, but finding something more important instead . . .
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My Review:
"We gotta make the best of it, don't we? Whatever we got, one way or other."
Since her mother left them, Ennor has taken on the responsibility of helping her father with the farm and with her younger brother trip. But her father has problems as well and is now very unwell, leaving Ennor with all of the responsibilities from taking care of the few cattle they have that survived foot and mouth disease, to making sure that Trip is cared for. (Trip also has what appears to be a mild form of autism, but it never goes into detail about it.) With very little money, and a father that can't take care of them Ennor feels like she has to do something. But what she decides to do could end in a dead end and still leave them with nothing and no hope.
Along Ennor quest to find what she is looking for she meets several people. Some bad and some so good that they decided to help her out and make it possible to reach her destination. With the help of the others not only does Ennor get to where she needs to be, but she also learns a lot about life along the way.
"Ennor didn't want to forgive him. He was forever dumping on her dreams while she had to bolster him up when he talked about studying and university dreams."
One thing that did kind of bother me about this book though was, it never went into detail about how the world went crazy or how foot and mouth ends up affecting everyone. But I do understand why it doesn't because it is a YA book and most of the time young people don't pay attention to those type of things until they have to. It was just a little surprising because of how involved in things Ennor seemed to be after her mother left.
Overall I did find this book to be enjoyable. At times it was hard to read because things weren't looking so good for the characters. But you also wanted to keep reading to find out if they made it and if they found what they were looking for. Before this I didn't know much about the moor or what it even meant, but after knowing that it's just open field the trek across it made more sense to me. As for the whole world going crazy around them bit, I found very believable. We know people do things when they are desperate and that exactly what was happening in this world. We also know that sometimes young people have to do what they can to make a life for themselves when the parents checkout. Now I'm not saying that the main character was smart, just that she was doing what she thought was right for her and trip in order to be able to stay alive.
This book was also filled with happy moments though, and imagination. It showed how even when things have gone completely crap that you can still find a light, and that while things might not completely turn out how you wanted them to, somehow they will still be okay.
"Thank you." "For what?" ...."For teachin' me stuff, bout life. You taught me to love life. I'll miss that, I'll miss you."
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