What a scary thought: waking up in someone else's body and LIFE one morning, without forewarning or preparation! Alex Gray is suddenly Philip Garamond - and he surely doesn't want to be. Over the next few weeks he contemplates many questions: Can he be Philip or must he reinvent this stranger's life? How should he deal with Philip's family, friends, teachers - and above all: his girlfriends? What is a soul and a psyche? And, most of all: is there any way to reclaim his old life? Martyn Bedford creates a far too convincing tale from a physical and psychic impossibility - writing of the highest order. I'm surely going on a Bedford binge - what else has he written?!Een oggend, sommer so op sy nugter maag, word Alex Gray wakker - maar in 'n vreemde huis, familie, stad, skool, lewe. Daar was geen waarskuwing of voorbereiding nie: almal wat hom teenkom, aanvaar hom as Philip Garamond. Maar hy is nie Philip of Flip nie en wil dit ook nie wees nie. Hy moet op staande voet Philip se lewe aanleer: sy vriende, veral meisies, sy vakke, sy sporte, ensovoorts. Of moet hy Philip herontwerp om soos Alex te wees? Sy pogings om sin te maak van sy situasie lewer verstommende resultate op en laat hom diep nadink oor wat lewe en identiteit behels. Hoe in hemelsnaam / op aarde / de hel moet hy hierdie komplekse en haas onmoontlike situasie oorleef? Met die hulp van Rob, wat in 'n soortgelyke situasie is, probeer hy die toestand deurgrond en 'n oplossing vind. Martyn Bedford se verhaal, gebaseer op 'n onmoontlikheid, is hoogs oortuigend, veral weens die karakters waarmee hy Alex / Philip se wêreld bevolk. En die (soms skreeusnaakse) vertellings van andere wat soortgelyke ervarings as Alex had, waarmee die boek afsluit, voeg fassinerende dimensies tot die sentrale gedagte toe. Ek gaan beslis meer van Bedford lees: 'n skrywer om dop te hou en te volg! Flip by Martyn Bedford is about a 14 year old boy who goes to bed one night and wakes up as a different 14 year old boy in a different town. “Alex couldn’t have said what woke him up that morning.... Another shout: ‘Come on, you’re going to be late.’ Late for what? It was a Saturday; he didn’t have to be anywhere” (Bedford 1). He sits up and looks around the room and realizes that it is not his room. It is not his bed. The window is not where it normally is. He walks downstairs to find a dog that is growling at him and a mom that is putting together a breakfast for him and a sister. He woke up as Philip Garamond, or Flip. She told Flip to get ready for school and he went back upstairs hoping to wake up from this dream and laugh. Alex is suddenly pushed out the door and walking to school. Flip’s phone went off and he had a text from a girl named Donna. He assumed that it was a girlfriend of this guy named Flip. Walking into school, he gets talked to by a couple of guys that are Flip’s friends. Alex walks away still figuring out how this can all be happening. A little bit later in the book, Alex goes onto Flip’s computer and googled as much as he could about his symptoms and what’s been happening with him. He posts on forums and walls to try and find out what’s been going on. He logs on one day to find that one of his posts was answered: “Hi iamalex1, what you are talking about is psychic evacuation. Try this website.Good luck, Rob (aka Corb1959)” (Bedford 124). This is where things start to fall into place for Alex. He meets Rob in person and just like Alex, Rob is a Psychic Evacuee, or PE, too. This means that your soul has moved into another body because you died and your soul did not want to die yet. Now Alex Gray has to figure out how to get his soul back into his body because he has been in a coma for 6 months now due to a hit-and-run accident. Since PE usually happens to people who died, Alex and Rob are faced with the trouble of trying to get Alex to control Flip’s body but also to try and return back to his body.
What do You think about Flip (2011)?
11/12/13Awesome date to a finish a pretty good book!
—1234read
