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Read Secret Heart (2009)

Secret Heart (2009)

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Genre
Rating
3.52 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0440418275 (ISBN13: 9780440418276)
Language
English
Publisher
laurel leaf

Secret Heart (2009) - Plot & Excerpts

Young Joe Maloney does not fit. He stutters, is constantly bullied by the children of the bleak suburbanan town of Helmouth and cannot seem to stop truanting. Alone he wanders the wastelands around the nearby motorway, he sees things others do not and though his mother, raising him alone, his carney father gone before he was born, she worries for him.Then one night he dreams of a tiger, Almond's description weaving its rank smell and the feel of its fur and awesome power thorough our minds. He wakes to find Hackenschmidt's Circus in town on its final tour, but there are no tigers at this circus. There are no animals of any kind, only a threadbare sky blue tent, gaudy paintings washed out and acts well past their prime. Joe is drawn to trapeze artist Corinna, a parentless girl his own age, and she takes his hand and guides him through his part in a lyrical wake for the dying circus.An achingly beautiful story about difference, and how sometimes when you are different it is not you who are 'wrong', but the world itself. Joe rises beyond the stunted grey life of the aptly named Helmouth and enters into a world of colour and imagination. As always with Almond, we cannot be sure of what we witness, it is ineffable, but of the highest value.

This book was very interesting, it was about a inocent boy with mental, and verbal problems and many questions about life. His inocence is shown when a circus comes to town and he is drawn to it, but everyone else is on strike because they want the circus to leave and let the animals out. Joe learns that in a cruel world there are people that understand. He gets this weird dream about a tiger visiting him in his room. The answers to his questions are with the people in the circus. he meets this friendly girl, who does stunts, they become friends. She helps him find his destiny. I really enjoyed it, but it was confusing aswell. I do recomend it for experienced readers.

What do You think about Secret Heart (2009)?

I should finish my second reading of this amazing book today.David Almond is one of my favorite authors, and this is one of--if not the top of my list--my favorite novels of his. The emotional tone is simply astounding. And he shows how beautiful writing can be, even without sentence variety. He starts so many sentences with "Noun verb blah blah blah." Normally, this writing style gets old, but in Almond's hands it's nothing short of gorgeous. If you read only one of his books, most should probably sitck with Skellig, but this is the one I'd recommend.THIRD READ:Apparently, I had already read this twice. No wonder it seemed so familiar. However, it's no less beautiful. Almond's words are the best kind of simple: gorgeous and clear. You're never lost. You're never confused. And you're always enchanted.Please, if you haven't read a David Almond book, do yourself a favor and pick one up. You'll be hard pressed to go wrong.
—Chris

I guess I didn't get it.(view spoiler)[It started off with a good premise, but as it went on… I suppose it wasn't my style. The plot is thin-- Joe has to bring the spirit of the tiger into the wilderness? And he can feel the spirits of the animals inside him, especially the tiger./sigh/But. So many things aren't resolved? But maybe that's the point: that Joe exists to bring resolve to the circus and not everything else in his life. But those problems don't just go away… So then what happens? Joe's got a truancy officer breathing down his neck, some creeper gets lost in the woods, that girl's mother is still in Russia. Like.The tiger thing was cool but what about everything else?I'm just way too lost after this book to even write a coherent review.I love Skellig and My Name is Mina, but this one fell short. Just couldn't get onboard with his brand of fantasy in this one or his storytelling. (hide spoiler)]
—Tasia

I couldn't wait to finish this book - didn't get into it at all and didn't feel anything for any of the characters. The main character a lad called Joe lives most of his life inside his own head as in the real life he stammers and not very clever and hasn't many friends. He thinks he catches glimpses of creatures (just out of his eye sight) and feels like he is in another skin at times. A circus comes to town and a tiger who used to work there left his spirit in the circus tent. This winds itself inside his head. It's his job to lead him back to the wilderness.
—Den

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