3.5
The Gone Away Place
By Christopher BarzakPublisher Description
From Stonewall Honor author Christopher Barzak comes a haunting novel of love and loss, in which a series of tornadoes rips through a small midwest town, forever altering the lives of those who live there.
Ellie heads up her high school yearbook, and until the tornadoes come, her biggest worry is how to raise enough money to print them. But since the day when a rash of powerful tornadoes touched down in Newfoundland, Ohio--killing more than half of the students in her school, not to mention dozens more people throughout the town--she's been haunted: by the ghosts of her best friends, by the boy next door, even by her boyfriend. And the living are haunting her too, all those left behind in the storm's wake to cope with the "gone away" pieces in their lives. A chance encounter with one ghost leads Ellie to discover a way to free the spirits that have been lingering since the storm, and she learns that she's not the only one seeing the ghosts--it's a town-wide epidemic.
Ellie heads up her high school yearbook, and until the tornadoes come, her biggest worry is how to raise enough money to print them. But since the day when a rash of powerful tornadoes touched down in Newfoundland, Ohio--killing more than half of the students in her school, not to mention dozens more people throughout the town--she's been haunted: by the ghosts of her best friends, by the boy next door, even by her boyfriend. And the living are haunting her too, all those left behind in the storm's wake to cope with the "gone away" pieces in their lives. A chance encounter with one ghost leads Ellie to discover a way to free the spirits that have been lingering since the storm, and she learns that she's not the only one seeing the ghosts--it's a town-wide epidemic.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities15 Reviews
3.5
MrsGriggsReads
Created 8 months agoShare
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“It’s amazing how your whole world can change from one decision to the next. For Ellie Frame, that’s exactly what happened. 3 tornadoes, known as “The Outbreak”, ravaged her town of Newfoundland Ohio right before her eyes. In that moment, she watched her whole world end. Or so it felt.
The Gone Away Place is a heartfelt tale of a teenage girl who navigates major loss, guilt, and moving forward when it seems as though her whole world has come crashing down and there’s no path forward in sight. The author has done a wonder job of helping you feel what the characters are feeling, and keeping you interested along the way.
"That's how you'll know, Ellie," she'd said when she'd finished the tale, pointing to the lighthouse on the hill in the distance. "You'll know by the great lengths they go to for you to feel like, wherever you are, as long as you're with them, you're home."
4/5 stars ONLY because the description on the back is very misleading as to what this will be about.”
Kaitlin Pothireddy
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Dedellia
Created over 1 year agoShare
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“This book is about tragedies and surviving. Ellie is the only one of her friends who survived the tornadoes that destroy hey school and now she has live with that. Then, she starts to see ghosts, she is not the only one. The people are haunting the town and everyone is trying to find out their place in this situation.
This book made me cried. Many times. I cried for the loneliness, for the lost, for those lives and for those stories. It’s not a book I could read in one sitting because it’s a heavy book. Full of meaningful messages, but not the kind of messages you can load in one night. I’m glad I took the time to read and understand.”
B Dee
Created about 2 years agoShare
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About Christopher Barzak
Chris Barzak's stories have appeared in a many venues, including Nerve, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Teeth, Interfictions, Asimov's, and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Chris lives in Youngstown, Ohio, where he teaches fiction writing in the Northeast Ohio MFA program at Youngstown State University. Find Chris on Twitter at @cbarzak or christopherbarzak.com
Other books by Christopher Barzak
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