Things Hoped For (ISBN 039924350X)

Katie's Review:
I liked this book because it's by Andrew Clements. I am Andrew Clements number one fan. I've read a lot of other Andrew Clement book before and " Things Hoped For" is one of his best. It's about this girl named Gwen. She moves from West Virginia to New York to live with her grandfather. One day her grandpa left a message saying he went away,but carry on with your life. Gwen wants to know where he is. Does she figure it out? I think everyone should read this book at least once because it's an awesome book.

Good Story, Nice Character Interactions:
Gwen is a driven musician. She is seventeen years old and a very talented violinist. As there weren't many opportunities for her to study music in her West Virginia town, she took her grandfather up on his offer to live with him in Manhattan and attend an exclusive private high school focused on music. Every ounce of Gwen's being is concentrated on her upcoming auditions for music colleges. She practices for hours a day and tries to limit distractions. That is one reason she is so distraught by the fighting between her grandfather and his younger brother, who keeps showing up at their house and shouting about money. Then just days before her auditions, Gwen's grandfather disappears. He leaves an answering-machine message for her, instructing her to go on as normal and not to let anyone know that he isn't at home. Of course, Gwen finds these instructions very difficult, and she is extremely concerned about her grandfather's welfare. But because she is brave and organized, she does her best to get through this difficult situation. Gwen is a great character, a strong high school student who has goals and a plan to achieve them. I really liked the details of her relationship with her grandfather, and I liked her relationship with Robert. It was nice to see his character again, after reading about him in an earlier book by this author. It was really interesting to see him from inside a different character's head, and I liked the ways his history was incorporated into Gwen's story.

Sequel to Things Not Seen:
Gwen lives with her grandfather in New York and studies violin at the Manhattan School of Music. The rest of her family is home in West Virginia. Gwen plays a borrowed violin and attends music school on a scholarship. She knows that the only way to attend college is to play well enough at her auditions to get a scholarship. After a fight with his brother, her grandfather disappears, leaving behind only a message on the answering machine. Robert, who readers will recognize as Bobby the invisible boy from Things Not Seen, is a trumpet student who is in New York for auditions. He and Gwen become friends and he helps her deal with her grandfather's disappearance.

Not so much with the sci-fi theme of THINGS NOT SEEN, it's still a very good read...:
Gwen is a shy and introspective 17-year-old girl, who inhabits a world of classical music. Born and bred in West Virginia, Gwen, a gifted violinist, is currently living in New York with her grandfather so as to further her musical studies. Times look to be particularly intense for the upcoming week as Gwen prepares for her college auditions, in which she'll be playing classical pieces. One day, she comes home and finds that her grandfather had mysteriously vanished, leaving no trail except for a disconcerting message on the phone. In the message, her grandfather asks Gwen to handle things on her own temporarily as he has to go away for a while and, also, to not tell anyone that he's gone away. This proves to be problematic as her very pushy Uncle Hank has been coming over a lot, of late, as he'd been trying to bully Gwen's grandfather into selling the building which they co-own (Uncle Hank is broke, you see, and could use the money). One silver lining for the stressed-out Gwen is that she meets Robert, a fellow teenaged musician and a kindred spirit (Gwen sheepishly rues the fact that Robert has a girlfriend, and a blind one, at that). Robert and his surprising talents come in handy in Gwen's dealings with the persistent Uncle Hank, who just keeps on comin'. But the threat of Uncle Hank pales in comparison to the disquieting shadowman half-glimpsed by Gwen and Robert while in a shoe store... THINGS HOPED FOR is Andrew Clements's loose sequel to the exceptional Things Not Seen. It's a loose sequel because while the main character of THINGS NOT SEEN, Bobby Phillips, appears here as a supporting character and the theme of invisibility is re-introduced, the center of THINGS HOPED FOR is most definitely Gwen. With the story unfolding thru her eyes, Gwen, shy but very gifted musically, proves to be an appealing and vulnerable protagonist. Clements immerses you into Gwen's universe, into her fears and insecurities. You can't help but root for her as she gamely strives to balance her acute nervousness regarding her imminent auditions (and, by extension, her future career) with her worries about her missing, gravely ill grandfather. New York City reverberates to its own rhythms. There's a kind of magic which surfaces when the Big Apple is used as a backdrop, either on the screen or in a book. It's fun reading about Gwen and Robert traipsing down the lively streets of New York, whether it's walking past Carnegie Hall or visiting where John Lennon died. And it's fun watching Gwen being drawn out of her shell and enjoying Robert's company and being out and about. And Gwen's passion for music and poetry, it becomes almost a secondary character, so integral is it to her makeup and so influential to the tone of the book. THINGS HOPED FOR is an absorbing, sensitive coming-of-age fable. You'll find that it reads like a breeze, and that it'll be over before you know it. It's fairly short (only 167 pages), which prompted me to finish it in one go. Andrew Clements can write; his prose is simple yet lyrical. No surprise then that, in reading these evocative passages, a sense of warmth and intimacy permeates. There's a shocking moment somewhere in the book's second half which floored me - it surprised me and then surprised me again when I learned of the self-sacrifice which went into that one act. And, ultimately, THINGS HOPED FOR ends on a hopeful and uplifting note. Known for his children's books (Frindle is absolutely charming), Clements has now shown a flair for writing engrossing Young Adult books. I'm quite curious to see how he'll handle an adult novel. Lastly, it's nice to catch up with Bobby Phillips, who two years ago suffered thru his own horrible experiences. The Bobby of now is more self-assured and gregarious, yet he's still as resourceful as ever, which is good, because a bit of his past comes back to haunt him. This time, we get to see his musical side, his love for jazz music. In THINGS NOT SEEN, there's a mention of his playing the trumpet, but it was perfunctory, at best. Call it mawkish, but I loved what he did at the John Lennon spot. The best thing of all is that he's still with Alicia, his blind girlfriend. As with Bobby's friendship with Alicia in THINGS NOT SEEN, his friendship with Gwen here provides one of the highlights of this book. Alicia, sadly, is relegated to one appearance, and that via a phone call (but an important phone call). I can't wait for Things That Are, the third book in the series, to come out, as the featured protagonist promises to be Alicia, who just may be my most favorite character in this series.

Invisibility Revisited:
This is the sequel to Things Not Seen. The third book in the "Things" series is also now available: Things That Are. I consider Andrew Clements a master of storytelling! This little book is packed full of music and literary analogies. His simplistic yet profound way of writing appeals to a wide variety of ages. Here is just one example: "I sleep and I wake just as the bus dives like a whale into the Lincoln Tunnel, and then it plunges up and out into the gray air of the city. The harpooned bus spins around and around and comes to a gasping stop on the floor of the Port Authority terminal. I climb out, Jonah with a suitcase and a cheap violin ..." There is so much involved in this short book. Clements writes for children and teens, but as a slow, fully-grown reader, I am happy to trade extra pages for more substance. In my review for Things Not Seen, I compared Invisibility to Disability. I believe that same comparison can be seen in Things Hoped For, although Invisibility makes a much less prominent appearance. Here is an example "...you do not need to shout in my direction, Gwendolyn. I am presently invisible, but my hearing is unimpaired". When you hit chapter 11 which is titled "No Steak", get ready for the beginning of the ending and more intense happenings than were previously experienced in the book. One of the things I hope for is that this magnificent series continues!