{Synopsis} –The closest he will ever come to happiness is when he's hurting her. Will she let him? A beautiful and twisted story of first love and innocence lost — written when the author was just eighteen.
Sphinxie and Cadence. Promised to each other in childhood. Drawn together again as teens. Sphinxie is sweet, compassionate, and plain. Cadence is brilliant, charismatic. Damaged. And diseased. When they were kids, he scarred her with a knife. Now, as his illness progresses, he becomes increasingly demanding. She wants to be loyal — but fears for her life. Only the ultimate sacrifice will give this love an ending.
{My Thougts} – Two seven year-old girls named Leigh and Sarah plan out their entire lives underneath a tent sheet. They map out their whole lives from what they’ll be when they grow up, to what they will name their children, to even what their children will do when they grow up. Some plans run into bumps and then new plans need to be made to replace the old failed plans and this book is about planning, re-planning and replacing failed plans of the future.
Leigh and Sarah decide that they will each have one child a piece. Leigh a boy and Sarah a girl. They decide to name their children Sphinxie and Cadence. Sphinxie and Cadence grow up knowing the plan their mother’s had hatched that day under the sheet tent. They two children grow up being bestfriends or believing at least that that is what they are to one another. They grow up celebrating birthdays together, playing with one another and being around one another all the time.
Around the time they are ten Cadence does something unthinkable. He hurts Sphinxie, he cuts her with a knife and causes her to need 15 stitches. After that Leigh and Cadence move to England. The plan has started to crumble. The plan has started to fall a part. Leigh has problems dealing with Cadence. He ends up seeing many doctors and eventually he gets two diagnosis. Once Leigh shares with Sarah and the other she keeps secret.
When Cadence is sixteen he asks for Sphinxie to visit. He wants to see her. He wants to spend time with her. She feels drawn to him and she goes. Her and her mother go all the way to England so that she can see her childhood friend again. Cadence tells Sphinxie the secret his mother kept. The secret that hadn’t been shared. The secret had she had she known she probably would not have been so willing to visit.
Ever since Sphinxie was little her parents and her had known that Cadence was different, troubled a child that had issues and problems. She learned just what all that meant when he told her his secret, what was wrong with him what the doctors told him and his mother.
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When I had first started reading this book my first thoughts were that child has some serious problems. I guessed as to what his issues were and I wasn’t far off, the hints within the book really do help you to understand and realize what you are going to read in the later pages.
I think Cadence although a troubled boy had his own conflicts with life. I think he had his own way of dealing with things and he had his own way of figuring things out because he really had no other choice. I can’t begin to relate with him as I have not dealt with such issues but I can some what understand him in a way. Although I am not sure one can truly understand an individual such as him.
Sphinxie. She was such a normal, loving, emotional child. She was curious. She loved the idea of her mother’s plan for her. She, like her mother wanted it to come true. Sometimes things change. She felt drawn to him, I think because of that plan that had been made. She felt that she needed to be there for him no matter the danger she put herself in. In the end, she was brave. She was braver then I would even have been at 16. I couldn’t imagine going through all the things she went through because of Cadence. I couldn’t, but all of it only made her stronger. She is truly a character to look up to and admire. Despite all the bad that her life had been because of that boy, in the end she found a way to turn it all into something good and positive. A lesson every teenager can learn.
I highly recommend this book for anyone that is having struggles with relationships, mental illness and just lost in todays world. It is so easy to be just lost and want to follow some one else’s lead. This book shows you what can happen when you do that and when you choose to stop!
Final Conclusion: 5 Star Rating.
