Numbers by Rachel Ward

Numbers by Rachel ward

Numbers is an amazingly creepy yet reassuring book: creepy, because it’s about how mortal and fragile we all are but reassuring because it explains that we must therefore treasure every moment that we do have. The book follows the adventure of social outcast Jem and her new found friend Spider, as they flee from the authorities after a tragic mix-up caused by Jem’s ability to see the numbers: the death dates of everyone she meets. During the time they spend running they learn more about themselves and the nature of humans than would usually be possible for anyone, whilst making new friends on the way, before finally, life achieves meaning and everything comes into perspective, with an interesting revelation at the end.

This book is a brilliant book as it is about two kids, from poor backgrounds, one of which is in care and their struggle against prejudices from higher class people and the belief from the all adults around them that they will never achieve anything worthwhile. To a lot of people this book would be easy to relate to, but unfortunately not enough people who come from that type of background read books at all.

This book is written in quite an informal tone, obviously so that it will be easy to read and so that it will appeal to us as young people, but there are a few typos in it which can’t just be passed off as being part of the style of writing which is a disappointment but mostly the writing style is okay.

In terms of language then there is a fair amount of heavy swearing but then again, I easily hear worse walking around my school. Any sex that there is fairly innocent, nothing too graphic but it gets the picture across to you. I’d say this book is pretty innocent compared to some that I’ve read, but if you are easily disturbed or you’re sensitive to these kinds of topics then you should probably give this book a miss.

The plot in this book is fairly simple and short, but well bulked out with a nice balance of descriptive scenes and dialogues, something an unfortunately large amount of books don’t manage to do. It moves quite quickly and doesn’t linger on any one event for too long.

Overall I’d say that this is a good book to read if you don’t read books too often and is still worth a look in from more passionate readers.

7/10