Wild Awake

by Hilary T. Smith

Hardcover, 2013

Call number

FIC SMI

Collection

Publication

Katherine Tegen Books (2013), 384 pages

Description

Mystery. Romance. Young Adult Fiction. HTML: In Wild Awake, Hilary T. Smith's exhilarating and heart-wrenching YA debut novel, seventeen-year-old Kiri Byrd has big plans for her summer without her parents. She intends to devote herself to her music and win Battle of the Bands with her bandmate and best friend, Lukas. Perhaps then, in the excitement of victory, he will finally realize she's the girl of his dreams. But a phone call from a stranger shatters Kiri's plans. He says he has her sister's stuffâ??her sister, Sukey, who died five years ago. This call throws Kiri into a spiral of chaos that opens old wounds and new mysteries. Like If I Stay and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Wild Awake explores loss, love, and what it means to be alive.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member DarkFaerieTales
Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.

Quick & Dirty: This was an interesting book that covered some very serious issues, but I found it to be a little bit weird and disturbing.

Opening Sentence: It’s the first day of summer, and I know three things: One, I’m happy.

The Review:

Kiri Byrd has a
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bright future ahead of her. She is an amazing piano player and hopes to one day go to Julliard or another big art school. She is also in a band with her bestie Lukas, and they are getting ready to perform at a big competition. She has always had a crush on Lukas and she is hoping that this summer things will finally go beyond friendship with him. Her parents just recently left for a 6 week long cruise to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Kiri will be staying by herself during this time getting ready for a huge piano recital and the battle of the bands. Shortly after her parents leave she gets a disturbing phone call from a stranger stating he has some of her sister’s things. Kiri’s sister Sukey was killed in a car accident 5 years ago — at least that is what Kiri has always believed. Kiri decides to go and meet this man and get Sukey’s things back, but she discovers a lot more about her sister than she knew.

It turns out Sukey was murdered all those years ago, and the place she lived in was a hole in the wall. Kiri always believed that Sukey was an artist and that she lived a very glamorous life, but in all actuality her sister was a drug addict that was messed up with a lot of bad people. As Kiri tries to deal with this new information about the sister she adored, and all the things that are going on in her life she starts to go a little crazy. She stops sleeping and starts to do drugs. She also meets a new boy that has some serious paranoia problems. She doesn’t really know what’s important in her life anymore and she risks everything she has ever worked for in the process. She doesn’t know if she can ever go back to normal or what normal even is anymore.

So Kiri is our heroine in this book and I had a really hard time understanding her. She is very passionate about music and she uses that to escape her problems instead of facing them. She seems to do really stupid things and I felt that her consequences were slightly unreal. She reacts very emotionally to things and doesn’t really think about what her actions will do to herself or anyone else. The way that she dealt with her life was very stupid and naive of her. Instead of turning to people who care about her she turns to a boy she hardly knows and music. I had a really hard time connecting to her and understanding anything she did.

This book was a weird read for me. It actually did keep me interested, but by the end I just felt that everything was left unresolved. The topics addressed in this book were very different from anything else I have ever read and I found them interesting yet disturbing at times. Overall, I can’t honestly say I really enjoyed this book. Maybe if it had ended differently I would have liked it better, I’m not really sure. The writing was well done, I just couldn’t really connect to the story or the characters at all. If you think the story sounds interesting go ahead and give it a try. You might have a very different opinion than I did.

Notable Scene:

“Doug? Why did you say there were cops?”

He’s produced another beer from some hiding spot, and now he cracks it open. His bloodshot eyes are wandering.

“Goddamn management didn’t hardly wait twenty-four hours before they stuck the next person in there. They got this rat-faced tweaker moved in before the blood was even dry on the floor. There’s no respect around here. None at all.”

I wheel around to see Doug better and knock over a half-full can of beer that was perched on top of an unplugged mini-fridge. I really wish there was a light in here, because I’m starting to feel claustrophobic in the dimness with a giant trash bag pressing on my back and my ears buzzing louder and louder with every word Doug says.

“Doug,” I say in my steadiest, untrembliest voice, ”what are you talking about?”

Doug reaches out to stabilize the bag before it slips out of my hands. He holds on while I get a better grip. While I’m trying to find the right place to rest the weight of the bag on my shoulder, he leans his face in close to mine and fixes me with his big drunk eyes.

“Oh honey,” he says. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

FTC Advisory: Katherine Tegen Books/Harper Collins provided me with a copy of Wild Awake. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
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LibraryThing member stephxsu
When a strange caller informs young pianist Kiri Byrd he has the remains of her dead sister’s stuff—a sister who had been dead for years—Kiri’s life turns upside down. Kiri struggles to piece together what she’s learning about her sister, but doing so sets her on a crash course towards a
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breakdown, and only by acknowledging it can Kiri hope to live with it, to make it a part of herself.

With the weight of the expectations I placed upon its spine after declaring its synopsis to be one of the best I’d ever encountered, Hilary T. Smith’s debut novel WILD AWAKE had a lot to live up to. Fortunately, it was more than up to the task. WILD AWAKE reminded me of the best type of our favorite and revered Aussie YA: it’s whimsical and more than a little odd, but ultimately grounded in the solid reality of common emotions.

WILD AWAKE has many strengths, one of which is its startling and beautiful prose. It startles you because Smith is, oftentimes, just noting in passing an everyday detail or thought—only she does so in a way that makes you pause and actually notice what you otherwise would not. The prose tinkles like water trickling over crystal. Its brightness combines with the darker undertones of Kiri’s situation for a full symphony of bass emotions and soprano wonder.

From the start, Kiri as protagonist stands out. She is many things, has many identities—a serious pianist, a quipper; a dutiful daughter, a monomaniac—but she owns them all unabashedly, deliberately. Unlike other, forgettable YA protagonists who claim to be artists or rebels or whatever, Kiri doesn’t say: she just is, and that makes her being genuine. She’s unafraid to plunge herself into making mistakes, with the result that she gets more out of life than those who hang back. The times when she descends into a whirlwind of monomania are thrilling yet terrifying to read, because you see why she does it, why she needs to let herself go like that, and yet despite how seemingly carefree she is in those moments, you know it’s barely masking a deep, deep hurt. I desperately wish Kiri was real, because I think that her fearlessness, whether or not it’s enviable or reckless, would make me a better person.

That being said, in the end, it’s difficult to say what this book is about. The synopsis emphasizes the mysterious circumstances of Kiri’s sister’s death, but besides for being the catalyst for what happens in the book, finding out more about Sukey and what happened to her becomes less and less of a priority as the book flows along, replaced by Kiri’s deterioriating mental state. Which is a fine direction for a story to go, but still, a little…disorienting.

Nevertheless, WILD AWAKE was a story that lived up to its promises. It is more than the sum of its parts, more than just delectable prose, sympathetic character, and endearing family mystery. Go in with no anticipation of conventions, and enjoy the wild-awake ride.
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LibraryThing member ewyatt
After Kiri finds out the truth after her sister's death, her carefully organized and disciplined life begins to unravel.
LibraryThing member thehidingspot
When people ask me why I loved Wild Awake, I have a difficult time putting my reasons into words. This book is very different than any other contemporary YA book I've read, in a good, but indescribable way. For me, the most notable aspect of Hilary T. Smith's debut was how incredibly real it
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felt... so real, that, during the most intense passages when Kiri is in the depths of a mental breakdown, I had to take a deep breath, calm myself and steady my shaking hands.

Wild Awake tells the story of Kiri, a budding classical pianist who also plays keyboard in the band she belongs to with her best friend, Lukas. Years prior, Kiri's sister, Sukey, the black sheep of the family and Kiri's hero, died in an accident. Kiri knows little about the event, only remembering her sister through girlhood memories, because Sukey is a taboo subject in the eyes of Kiri's parents and older brother. When Kiri's parents leave her home alone while on vacation, she thinks she'll accomplish all sorts of things in her time alone: she'll take her relationship with Lukas from friends to more than friends, she'll perfect the piece she must learn on piano, and she'll rock Battle of the Bands with Lukas. Things take an unexpected turn, however, when Kiri receives a call from a man claiming to be a one-time neighbor of Sukey... a man who says he has her "stuff." Though Kiri tries to write off the call, she's drawn to the things her sister has left behind. In no time at all, she's discovered that there's more to Sukey's story than anyone admits... and more to her own as well.

I've attempted to find other books to compare to Wild Awake to better explain the tone and style of the novel, but the only acceptable comparison I came up with was the film Juno. Still, Juno is different in that it has laugh-out-loud moments. Wild Awake has a humor of sorts, but I never laughed aloud... But, as I read, I did picture scenes from the novel in the same sort of style as Diablo Cody's film. It tells the same sort of truths.

The romance in Wild Awake felt different than anything else I've ever read as well. Again, real. The boy Kiri eventually falls for is far from perfect. To me, it didn't even feel like Smith romanticized anything. The romance, like the entire novel, just was. Kiri's experience like something that could happen to me, my best friend, or any other girl.

I feel like I've completely failed at explaining how worthwhile of a read Wild Awake is, but, like I mentioned before, it's a book that truly defies simple explanations... which I suppose could quite possibly be reason enough to read it.(
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LibraryThing member NeysaKristanti
[A hardback copy was provided by the publisher for review purpose. Thanks HarperCollins!]

"The soul has a home of its own"
—Sukey

From looking at its title and cover, I first thought that this book would be a perfect light summer read about love and self-discovery. But although I was right about the
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love and self-discovery, it turned out that this book was way more serious than I first thought it was. And while it was not what I expected it to be, let's say it was not a bad surprise either.

Wild Awake told us as Kiri spent her usual evening practicing bad on her friend's Lukas basement. Her parents were on vacation, and she had a plan to spend the whole summer doing perfection : practicing classic piano for her course, win The Battle of Band with Lukas, water her Mom's azalea, and being a good girl. But when she got home and received call from her sister's Sukey friend, who claimed he had her sister's things, Kiri's life started to go downhill.
Because Sukey had been dead for five years.
And what her parents said about the death may not be so true after all.
As Kiri learned what really happened to her sister, and also falling in love with the mysterious Skunk, she also learned what it means to be alive. But what if the reality was not as pretty as the secluded world she had been living on her whole life?

This book started off a bit slow for me, but quite early on the story, it finally picked up the pace and became really interesting. Starting with the mystery phone call, the truth behind Sukey's—Kiri's sister—death that had been buried for five years finally resurfaced, and it's up to Kiri to learn what really happened to Sukey, things she never had the chance to.
I especially love how Hilary T. Smith unfolded the truth little by little, telling us a story about how Sukey was when she was alive and building our feelings for her, before telling us what really happened to her. The whole story really left an impact on me, as I felt really connected with Sukey, and the telling was not info-dump or stating-the-obvious-thing either. It also flowed well with Kiri's current life, and it really added the feeling that we're not really walking on the past either.

Kiri as our main character, really had a strong and distinct voice. Her narration was really strong, and it gave us enough information about what going on around her, while still stayed true to her personality. One thing that really left an impression on me was her sarcastic inner thought, which I personally think, was really entertaining. The conflicts playing on her mind was also a perfect way to portray a teenage girl, and Kiri really managed to capture that I'm-living-my-life feeling we teenagers have.
But, even thought her voice was brilliant, I found her became somewhat weird and a little bit annoying somewhere in the middle of this book. Sure, we would later know why. But while reading the part where she really became weird—and we weirded out—we have no idea what had happened to her. And while this weird things lasted a little bit long, I think it was kinda risky because that could make the readers feeling totally confused, and therefore decided to not read the book any further. Because, seriously, her narration made me feel stressed because she was kind of stressed and it was contagious, and it was just like, ugh.
The other characters, however, was not as brilliant as Kiri. Skunk, our other main character, was honestly flat and uninteresting. It felt that his life only happened whenever Kiri was around, and while she wasn't, boom, feels like he just disappear. I can't imagine his life, what happened on an ordinary night when he and Kiri just live their own life separately, or whatever he was doing outside the story. He basically didn't seemed real enough for me, and for a main character like him, I think it was a big no-no quality.

The side character was even worse. Denny—Kiri's brother—was really typical and literally unimaginable. His physic description was really lacking, his personality really standard, and his reaction way too typical. If only the side characters were even a little bit memorable, I would surely give this book four stars. Just, they weren't, at all, memorable or unique. Same thing goes to Lukas, Petra, Doug, and basically the whole casts beside Kiri and Skunk.
And Sukey, because she was the one I found on par with Kiri. She was brilliant, and stood out, even with the fact that she was no longer around. I love how she tried to look strong and free and rebellious, but inside was just a scared girl trying to discover herself and what she really wanted in her life. And when Kiri's perception of her and the true reality about her clashed with each other, it also added a really nice effect that made it easy for me to sympathize and admire her even more.

Aside from the part when Kiri became really weird, and also the sadly uninteresting side character, things I didn't like from this book was there were some things left unexplained. Sure, they were not a major point of the story, but they were not also small we could overlooked it either. Such as when Kiri was offered pills and she took it, what happened inside her body? Because I sure knew that was not just a pill, it's a 'pill' with quotation marks, and yet it didn't had any explained effect? Oh yeah.
And what happened with Doug's leg? And where in hell did the alias Skunk came from? And so many more. It was such a little details, but those details are what made this story believable. And yet, they weren't explained.

Overall, this book was quite a nice read, with a slow opening but it would suck you in after a few pages. The ending wrapped it nicely too, and if you're looking for a contemporary reads with a strong, distinct, and unique voice about love, music, self-discovery, and what it feels to be alive, you should definitely try this one.
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LibraryThing member edspicer
It’s really good. It is about a girl who finds out her sisters “accident” was really how she was murdered when she gets a phone call saying he wants to meet her in the getto part of the city. I read this book because, well, truthfully, I judged the book by its colorful color. And when I read
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the back I was hooked.
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LibraryThing member booktwirps
Kiri has her summer all planned out. Her parents are gone for several weeks and her brother, Denny, decided not to come home for the summer, which means Kiri has the house all to herself. No one to tell her what to do, when to clean, when to wake up. Now she can enjoy most of her summer at leisure,
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and spend all the time she wants with her bandmate and best friend (and crush), Lukas, and practicing her piano pieces. But, a strange phone call from an anonymous stranger shatters Kiri’s plans. The man on the other end of the line tells Kiri he has some stuff that belonged to her sister, Sukey, who died in an accident a few years before. If someone doesn’t pick up the stuff, it will be gone forever, and Kiri desperately wants the stuff. So, she sets out to retrieve it, setting in motion a chain of events that will change her for good.

I had several mixed emotions while reading this book. Some of it amazed me, and other parts of it maddened and even confused me. Regardless of all that, I can’t deny that Ms. Smith writes with a unique and wonderful voice. The prose fit the tone and the themes of the story beautifully. She perfectly captures Kiri’s voice and created some very unforgettable characters (more on that later). My only real gripe about the story was the plausibility of Kiri’s parents leaving her alone. Sure, the neighbors were home should she have any problems, and Denny was just a phone call away, but when we find out the mystery behind Sukey’s death, it made me really question why the parents would leave Kiri alone for so long. It just didn’t make sense to me. I know if I were a parent I would never do that (nor would my parents have done that).

This is a very character driven piece and Ms. Smith does a wonderful job of creating layered, complex characters. There were times when I wanted to shake Kiri. She had so much going for her. She was a promising pianist and has a bright future ahead of her, yet she spent her days smoking weed (lots and lots of weed), and getting mixed up in some situations and with people that she shouldn’t have. The crazy thing is, even though I knew she sometimes shouldn’t be doing something and I wanted to stop her, I also wanted to egg her on. Then there were times when I wanted to hug her and help her. What I liked most about her character was, despite some questionable decisions, she felt honest and real. She may not have made all the right decisions, but I got her.

I also really liked Skunk. I knew the minute Kiri ran into him and he helped her with her bike that there was something special about him. He was probably the most complex character in the book and one I will remember for a very long time.

Erratic, unexpected, beautifully written and a bit maddening, Wild Awake really took me by surprise. If you like your contemporary reads to be full of depth and complex characters, I highly recommend this one.
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LibraryThing member A_Reader_of_Fictions
The Wild Awake audiobook turned out to be a lot of fun, largely because of the movie I played out in my head, one I probably would have loved when I was a teen, but more on that later.

Why Did I Read This Book?
Wild Awake got so many rave reviews from trusted reviewers, but even so I was a bit
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hesitant to read the book. Reason one was that I'm not much interested in books on drug use. Reason two is that a couple of people mentioned the style was sort of stream of consciousness, which I tend not to enjoy. Thus, I decided the audiobook would be a good way to not be bothered by the latter but still check out the book. This was a good choice for me.

What's the Story Here?
Kiri has been left alone for the summer while her parents go on a cruise. Her parents are seriously neglectful, because this Kiri spends the summer making terrible decisions: getting drunk, smoking pot, neglecting to practice for her piano recital, and mostly entering bad neighborhoods alone. Kiri has gone off the rails because she got a call from someone who said he had her dead sister's stuff. Since she idolized her sister Sukey, and learning so many things her family kept from her (like the fact that her sister was murdered and didn't die in a car crash) dredges up her emotions again and she's not prepared to handle that.

How are the Characters?
While I cannot say that I particularly liked Kiri, she did feel very real and very much like a teen. There was just something so naively unaware about Kiri and the way she approached life, and she did everything with so much sincerity. She truly had no idea that taking a whole bunch of pills after smoking pot and drinking alcohol was liable to end with her death. She just felt so young and innocent, even if she doesn't act that way most of the time. She and Skunk are the only ones who really get fleshed out, though, so I did feel like some of the characterization was lacking.

And the Romance?
Oh man, and I thought Piz was a horrible name for a love interest. We have a new winner! Skunk. Stinks, doesn't it? (*insert groans here*) Anyway, I actually liked Skunk, nickname and smoking aside, and his real name is Philippe, so he does have one. The two of them are both bad news bears and need to get on the straight and narrow. I don't think I want them to date forever, but they both needed someone to help them through some issues, so it was a good time for them. I didn't even mind that they instaloved, because Kiri thinks so many things that aren't true are true that it just felt like being young and stupid.

And the Family Dynamics?
This is where the story really lacked for me. There wasn't really ever a big confrontation with her family. She has a bit of an emotional arc with her older brother when he comes home to find her nearly dead, but her parents come home and just order her to see some shrinks. Like, really? That's it. Ugh. I just felt like there should have been MORE with all of that, since the central issue was Sukey, but the focus was more on Kiri's romance with Skunk, which was a bit unfortunate.

How was the Narration?
The narration totally delighted me, because McManus' voice sounds a lot like Christina Ricci, so I was picturing the whole book as a movie starring a young Christina Ricci, who totally would have been boss at this roll. Ricci was one of my favorite actresses back in the day because she shares my first name and was the only one to get to kiss a cute boy in Now and Then (even if she did grow up to be Rosie O'Donnell). Anyway, McManus does a good job capturing Kiri's youthful idealism.
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LibraryThing member Brainannex
An OK read but not anything that really shook my bones.
LibraryThing member EdGoldberg
Kiri is spending July alone at home while her parents are on a month long anniversary cruise. WildAwakeHer older brother is away at school. She is supposed to be practicing piano non-stop for a competition she’s entered. But one call upsets all of her plans.

The call is from Doug Fieldgrass and he
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slurs “Lissen, I ain’t going to call again. You want her stuff (Kiri’s older sister Sukey who supposedly died in a car accident when Kiri was 10), you get yourself down here and take it.”

Kiri is perplexed. She idolized her artist sister. She also knew that Sukey and her parents were at odds and Sukey was thrown out of the house. But no one ever speaks of Sukey. Kiri decides to track down Doug and find out what happened.

Along the way she befriends Skunk, a guy a few years older, with his own problems.

Wild Awake, Hilary T. Smith’s debut novel, is certainly an interesting read. However, I found the beginning slow going and by the end I just wanted to find out what happened, so I guess a little more editing might have been a good thing. Also, if it’s meant to be realistic fiction, there were some parts in which you have to suspend your belief and rely on imagination.
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LibraryThing member ItsBookishMe
Wild Awake was a very fast paced and thrilling read. Right from the beginning the narration set the tone of what I was getting myself into. The story follows seventeen year-old Kiri Byrd, home alone while her parents are on a cruise she discovers her parents lied to her about her sister’s death.
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Her sister’s death was not an accident, but a murder. Kiri idolized her older sister, Sukey, so learning this and other subsequent revelations, triggered a mental breakdown which in turn sent Kiri into a tailspin of drug use, neglectfulness, making bad decisions, and suffering severe manic episodes.

Kiri was basically alone to deal with her breakdown and it was hard seeing her suffer not knowing she needed help. A person with mental illness will probably not be able to diagnose themselves and probably won’t believe you if you tell them they need help, so I couldn’t completely blame Kiri for the stupid decisions she was making. Kiri’s parents’ lack of sense of urgency when told that Kiri is possibly using drugs and might have had a nervous breakdown, really frustrated me. They are the naive with blinders on kind of parents, I really, truly believe her parents are irresponsible idiots. They don’t like to deal with the tough stuff so they go into denial.

All the things that Kiri did trying to reconnect with her dead sister after leaning how she died could have gotten her killed. I thought she was very lucky, wish I could have seen that she got that and that her parents were going to wise up and get her the help she needed. Unfortunately, the confrontation with her parents was just glossed over and I have no clue if they get how lucky they are Kiri didn’t end up like her sister. If it wasn’t for Lukas’ mom’s knowledge and ability to recognize mental illness, things could have been worse.

One of the things I liked about this book was the inclusion of all the varied characters that Kiri came into contact with while trying to reconnect with her sister. They’re the kind of people her parents might have actually freak out over, if they knew Kiri was spending time with them.

Audiobook
The audiobook worked for me, but I’ve read a few reviews that describes the written book’s style of writing to be either great, unusual, interesting, or just not a fan of it. From listening to it I can see how those feelings are so varied. My reaction was more from feelings, and yes, at first I felt like the story was running away from me and I needed to catch up. Eventually I got a handle on it, after being frustrated with the protagonist I eventually started to sympathize instead.

The rapidness of this story, some very interesting characters, and a few heartbreaking and touching parts, made me curiously anxious to see where it would go. So overall I think it was a good read that kept me so absorbed that I listened to it non-stop with a few breaks here and there in one sitting.
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LibraryThing member HeatherLINC
This book is certainly a wild read dealing with obsession, murder, grief and mental illness. Kiri is a talented musician but, one night after an unexpected phone call, her life starts to quickly spin out of control. Told from her point of view, I didn't really like Kiri, her actions were too manic
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- smoking weed, consuming alcohol, midnight bike rides, all-nighters, taking pills from strangers and so on. Throughout the book her voice becomes more and more frantic as she tries unsuccessfully to keep her life together. However, having a close family member with a mental illness, I found her very believable.

My favourite character is definitely Skunk who has issues of his own. He is an endearing, unique character, especially for a love interest, and is quirky, shy, kind and a big teddy-bear. I really liked how the author gradually explained Skunk's back story and finally gave him redemption. However, the weakest link in the story, for me, is the absence of Kiri's parents, which was just too convenient.

"Wild Awake" is a gritty, emotional read which teens will either hate or love.
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LibraryThing member LibraryCin
Kiri’s parents are away on a cruise and have left her on her own. I think she’s 17? She is part of a musical duo with her best friend, Lukas, and they have Battle of the Bands coming up. Kiri is also a very good piano player and has a test(? competition?) coming up. When she receives a strange
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phone call about her (long-dead) sister, she learns something (big) her parents never told her about her sister’s death. This starts a series of events that has Kiri spiralling out of control.

I didn’t like Kiri, nor many of the choices she made. The book became kind of chaotic as we moved more and more toward the end. I did like the Vancouver setting – it’s always fun recognizing places. I also thought the idea of Kiri never learning what she does about her sister’s death until the start of this book (5 years later) is pretty unrealistic. I can’t imagine she wouldn’t have heard it somewhere, even if not from her parents or brother. The book still (at least more at the start and throughout the first half or so) interested me enough to consider it “ok”.
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Pages

384

ISBN

0062184687 / 9780062184689

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