Numbers by Rachel Ward
Genre: Paranormal
“Nothing makes any sense. Nothing means anything. You’re born, you live, you die. That’s it.”
The novel’s main protagonist is Jem, a troubled teenager who has witnessed the death of her mother due to a heroin overdose. But more than just being traumatized by this horrific event, Jem is also burdened by an even more troubling talent — the ability to see the exact date of a person’s death, their “death date”, whenever she looks them in the eye.
She cannot avoid it, and their deaths cannot be prevented. She feels overwhelmed and burdened by this, pushing away everyone, until Spider, a schoolmate, and fellow troublemaker befriends her. When Jem foresees a huge tragedy in London, authorities believe she had something to do with it, causing her and Spider to run away together where they encounter many difficulties, hardships, and love.
“We all know we're one day closer to the end when we wake up in the morning. We just kid ourselves that it's not happening.”
A few years ago, I went into this thinking it was going to be sort of post-apocalyptic, with this huge cataclysmic event that Jem knows is coming, and that it was going to be all about that. I was oh so wrong. Really, though, it’s all about Jem. It is a story of self-discovery as much as anything.
“We all know that everything will end some day, but we can not let that slow us. We must not let that stop us from living. ”
The book is much more a study of human nature — in all its harsh realities and surprising glories. There are so many things working together to make Jem’s story what it is: powerful, genre-defying and unflinching. There are elements of a coming of age story, dashes of romance, gritty urban fantasy and thought-provoking sci-fi. It truly makes you think of life and death and everything that comes with it. The harsh reality of people leaving you, losing people you love and maybe even having a sixth sense. The book had me sobbing uncontrollably at the end. Despite the main protagonist's young age, I still felt it's a topic that relates to any age group - we all lost someone in our lives and this is exactly what this book is about. This book is not meant to teach you the way of life but rather show you how different people live it and how these characters view and reflect about death.
“It's okay to talk about it. Death is so normal, I don't know why everyone gets so hung up about it. We all have to deal with it. Most people that you talk to have lost someone, but nobody talks about it.”
I truly loved a lot of the choices Rachel Ward made in this book, because I never really felt like she was holding back. The book has some flaws but I didn't mind, the imperfectness made it even more appealing. Ward doesn’t write as if she is talking down to her audience. Jem’s voice is always authentic and utterly human, by turns filled with wonder and triumph, and hopelessness and despair. Her voice and her journey — fantastic as it may be — are so human, in fact, that she is at times frustrating to the extent that you want to yell at her, in the way that truer characters can be.
“You get used to someone—start to like them, even—and they leave. In the end, everyone leaves.”
4 stars. ✮✮✮✮
P.S: The second book in the series is The Chaos with new characters. It covers the same ability Jem has in the first book but to a greater extent. Not as good as the first one but still a good read.
