[R] Tape, by: Stephen Camden

Tape
by: Stephen Camden

★★★☆☆

Record a voice and it lasts forever…

In 1993, Ryan records a diary on an old tape. He talks about his mother’s death, about his dreams, about his love for a new girl at school who doesn’t even know he exists.

In 2013, Ameliah moves in with her grandmother after her parents die. There, she finds a tape in the spare room. A tape with a boy’s voice on it – a voice she can’t quite hear, but which seems to be speaking to her.

Ryan and Ameliah are connected by more than just a tape.

This is their story.

my thoughts

Sometimes I dig into some books because I felt like it, sometimes because someone felt like it or other times because I need to complete a challenge and I do by reading it. But mostly because I felt like it, although I like that my challenges numbers are growing. I'm being serious when I said that I really felt like reading this book, but when I did... I just wanted to stop, but I did not.

Lately, my young adult books have been about loss and having the kind of end that it isn't happy at all. I'm very empathic and even though I know, because believe me I know, that the characters aren't real, that the story isn't real, it gets me. That is actually what happened with this book. Two stories that meet each other at some point. A tape that comes from the past to resolve the present and posible future. 1993, Ryan Wilson telling the story how he met a girl, how his father married and brought his new wife and stepson to live with them and exactly how moving on he was after his mother's dead. 2013, Ameliah hearing that story and finding out how everything connects. After her mother passing after a car accident and then his father passing away of cancer, Ameliah is left with her Nan, but basically alone is figuring out what is happening inside her emotions.

I'm afraid that I cannot tell you more, because it actually spoils the mystery of the book. Me finding out everything chapter by chapter had me in bed all day reading it all. The book is short, but it most be read slowly, because if not you will miss something important and you will be lost. The story is told in some way that I liked, but did not understood all of it most of the time. Everything about this book is to show how you feel, because no one will judge you and if they do, they aren't feeling. Feeling is human. Grief is human. But so is moving on, you will never forget because that's not the idea, but people must move on. That is exactly what I captured from this book.

If you are feeling down, don't read this book. If you are feeling happy, don't read this book. Whatever feeling you are having, do not read it because of it. Read it because you felt like it.