Are You Alone On Purpose? (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
This book was a huge disappointment. I expected it to be like Rules, a Newberry Award winning book by Cynthia Lord. This is like Rules' evil twin. It reads like a Middle Grade book, but the content is clearly YA. It deals with Autism, spinal chord injuries, cancer, the death of a parent, cursing, Judaism, and sex with a paraplegic. I'm left wondering, who was this book written for?It certainly wasn't written for paraplegics. The boy, Harry, is a foul mouthed jerk. He's no inspiration to anyone. I'd say the guy in Monkey Shines is more inspirational than Harry. It wasn't written for kids that have siblings with Autism. It certainly wasn't written for Jews, cancer victims, or anyone else. I think the problem with this book was that it had no audience. It tries too hard to be Judy Blume, but it doesn't have the heart of a Judy Blume book. It felt rushed and forced. The premise of this book is that Allison has a twin brother, Adam, who has Autism. Allison and Adam are bullied by this jerk, Harry. Harry goes to camp and injures his spine, leaving him unable to walk. We find out that Harry is a jerk because his mother died *sarcastic sob* and his father doesn't know how to communicate with him. Harry's dad is a rabbi preparing Adam for his Bar Mitzvah Then *surprise, surprise* Harry and Allison fall in love for no good reason. Adam says the Torah perfectly. Happy ending. Oh right, Allison explodes on her parents for no good reason. The End.This book is so predictable, you could have seen the entire thing from a mile away. Girl falls in love with her tormentor. He has a tortured past. This is like the Twilight Prequel, only Edward gets physically hurt and Bella must care for him while dealing with emotional abuse. This book is an insult to all the parents of Autistic children. Allison learns from Harry to be a brat and yell and scream and curse for what you want. Harry never learns anything. Well, he does learn one thing -- you have to be nice to the girl you want to make out with. Otherwise, she might not sit in your lap. Also, it's written in third person and it alternates between Harry POV and Allison POV. It leaves you kind of detached from the characters and unable to really sympathize with them. Especially when one of them is a self-righteous jerk. People loose their mothers everyday. That doesn't give you the right to treat people like crap. I know that everyone deals with things in their own way, but Harry is a jerk and Allison is an idiot for falling in love with him. The character development is just so poor. One minute Allison and Harry hate each other. The next, they're in love. It's like Beauty and the Beast gone horribly wrong.If you want a decent book dealing with all of the issues this one deals with and more, try Rules by Cynthia Lord. It's much better written and the characters actually have personalities. If you want a book that deals with Judaism in a much better way try 'Sally J. Freedman, Starring as Herself' or 'Introducing Sasha Ambromitz'. Those are much better too. 1.5 stars, because I liked the premise, but hated the execution.
Alison Shandling is a very intelligent jewish girl with an autistic twin brother. Harry Roth is a jerk boy who picks on both Alison and her autistic brother. Alison has some sort of compelling sympathy for Henry and rather than being super ticked and hating him she pries into his life to find out the root of his anger. She finds that they both tend to react melodramatically to family issues and form a bond while Henry's Rabbi father tutors Adam. Obviously, Henry and Alison become infatuated, and blah blah blah. I was not impressed with this book in the slightest. I was shocked, actually, while reading it because I could not for the life of me figure out how the heck it was a National Book Award Finalist. The characters are so unlikable and slightly two-dimensional. Alison was so melodramatic that it really annoyed me. She yelled at her parents because they "didn't understand" and hated her brother for being autistic. Then, she sees this bad-boy character and is obviously attracted to him and tries to save him from his bad-boy ways. I'm really not one for dumb romance, but I can handle it if I love the characters. But alas, I hated Alison and Henry. Definitely wouldn't recommend this book to anyone that I know.
What do You think about Are You Alone On Purpose? (2007)?
I gave this book 1 star. I'd give it 1.5 if I could, though. This was book was HORRIBLE. It was absolutely dreadful and I barely even liked it. It lacked true emotion, and I felt that it had no conflict whatsoever. Alison seems very shallow, and hate seems to be a strong word to use towards her autistic twin brother Adam. 'At those times, she hated her brother.' I know that we all "hate" our siblings, but seriously? She doesn't even feel a tiny bit of sympathy for her brother? Who she has to defend and take care of? And then comes Harry Roth, the man-whore, the jerk.....in a wheelchair. I don't even think Alison and Harry are really in a relationship by the end of the book. Alison claims that Harry is her "boyfriend" but I think they just like kissing each other. And Harry is a jerk. He never even thought twice when he insulted Alison and Adam before he "fell in love" with her or whatever. Harry apparently has this accident and can never walk again. Alison is somehow "drawn" to him and hangs out with him. They begin to become friends and then something more. Crappiest book EVER. Let's just say I won't be picking off Books-A-Million's sales rack anymore.
—Carol Tran
I was not a fan of this book. This is younger than I usually read, but that didn't bother me. I found a lot of the characterizations unrealistic, and the ending came so soon and seemed like quite the copout. We see Allison getting some closure from her parents, but we never see Harry come to terms with his father and death of his mother. It seems like it might be going that way, but it never happens. Also, I thought that Harry's accident didn't have the typical repercussions... he didn't seem angry or upset at all. He just seemed like a complete jerk! Also, I found the book to be pretty offensive. Constantly calling Adam, Allison's autistic brother, retarded got on my nerves. It is one thing if the mean jerk kid is calling him retarded, but Allison calls Adam retarded, and so does the psychologist! I realize this was written in 1994, so maybe that was the best terminology back then, but it definitely didn't sit well with me. I was also put out by the way Allison's parents reacted to Adam. They act like he is really a burden, and that just didn't seem very realistic.
—Selina
This book really took on all the key points in the "Jerk" and the "Saint". The main characters are a boy and a girl. The girl has been raised as a goody good and has never really been that popular in life. Her brother has a mental illness, so most of her misfortunes are founded by that. After the boy goes to camp, he jumps into a pool or lake or something and becomes paralyzed from the waist down. He comes home from the hospitol and is very resentful towards his father, who is a pastor, and everyone else who tries to show him compassion. His friends leave him and the only person that tries to befriend him is the girl. It takes off from there ^^
—Vmpir Girl
