A Tale To Change YOUR Life? (Pay It Forward - Catherine Ryan Hyde)

Member Name: rachels_ratty

Product:	Pay It Forward - Catherine Ryan Hyde
Date:	15/04/04 (217 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent Characterisation, Interesting writing style, A real page turner

Disadvantages: The ending!

Trevor McKinney is 12 years old, in his first year of Junior High School and comes from what some may call a dysfunctional family. His father Ricky is a drunken low-life who has walked out on them, leaving his recovering alcoholic mother Arlene working two jobs to support them and cover the debts she has been saddled with.

Trevor?s social studies teacher is also new to the school. Rueben St Clair is a badly scarred Vietnam veteran who has become a loner, almost a recluse because nobody can get past his disfigurement. He tells Trevor?s class that he?s setting them an optional assignment that will earn them extra grade credits - Think of an Idea that Will Change the World and Put it into Action.

From small seeds big ideas grow so they say and this is very true in this case. Trevor?s idea is very simple. Instead of doing a good turn for someone who has helped you, pay it FORWARD instead. If someone does you a good turn, do something good, something big, something life changing for THREE other people. Then those three people will go on to help three people each and so on and so forth.

Unfortunately for Trevor things don?t go so well, or at least he thinks they don?t. He helps an old lady tend her garden and she dies, he helps a down-and-out who promptly gets arrested and his plans for his mother and Rueben ? well let?s just say they don?t go according to plan?

So, very simplistically, this story tells the tale of a 12-year-old boy who decides he wants to change the world with a seemingly perfect idea, a ridiculously easy thing to put into practice. But if that were all there was to it ? well this would be a very short review of a very short book!

It is written as an after the fact sort of diary instead of a plain novel which I admit took me a while to get used to as the story seems to jump about a bit between characters. A few times I had to flick back a page to make sense of what I was reading next. That is not
as bad as it sounds actually, it meant I was having to devote my full time and attention to the story which helped me to absorb it better, to understand it more fully. I think, on reflection, it made MORE of an impact written in this style than it would have made written as a straightforward novel.

The characters are very well written and three-dimensional. Trevor?s disillusionment when he feels no one cares about his ?idea? is tangible as written in extracts from his diary. I felt like I was seeing glimpses of the world through a child?s eyes and how hard it is to make sense of the world when everything seems so easy to change, when adults seem so stubborn and set in their ways!

Rueben?s hidden pain and loneliness is more than apparent throughout the story as is Arlene?s struggles with supporting her son, battling against the pull of the ?bottle? and her love/hate relationship with Ricky. Through reading the book I felt the almost Catch-22 situation they both found themselves in their respective lives.

Rueben wants to let people in, but feels they won?t get past his scars so almost hides himself away. In a way he judges people before they get a chance to judge him ? there were times throughout the story when I felt like I wanted to meet him in ?real? life and give him a darned good shake! Now I have no idea if this is the reality for people who are facially disfigured or not, but the way his character played out certainly MADE it feel very believable.

Arlene?s character is equally as complex and confusing at times but her pain and confusion were just as understandable as Rueben?s. Let?s face it, having your partner walk out on you is one bad thing, but she really does have the odds stacked against her. Her character out of all the main players was the most interesting for me and I really enjoyed reading how she developed and changed as the tale progressed.

Now I?m sure a lot of you are aware that this book has been ma
de into a film I thought it prudent to mention it at this juncture. If you are one of those who have seen the movie and were left feeling disillusioned by it and wondering what the fuss was about (as I was) ? then read the book instead! The two really are completely different and I now understand why the film didn?t really work ? or at least it didn?t for me. Some of the characters in the book have been completely changed for the (unknown) purposes of Hollywood and the story altered, twisted and in some cases pounded that far out of shape it literally doesn?t make sense.

That?s why, for me I?m glad I gave the book a chance to see exactly what the author intended the story to be. Suddenly some things in the film make sense and I?m now intending to watch it again ? maybe this time round I?ll like it! The only thing that lets both film and book down is the ending, although the book does it better I still felt it was a bit of a cop-out on the author?s behalf. It was almost as if she had naturally let the book flow where IT wanted to and then had no idea how to bring things to an end.

All things considered I do recommend everyone goes out, lays a hand on a copy and reads it. It?s a warm sort of tale, one of hopes, aspirations, how some people CAN rise against the odds stacked against them. I read it in just a couple of days, I couldn't put it down once I'd grown acustomed to the writing style.

I know it?s only a work of fiction but in today?s world, wouldn?t it be nice to think that maybe, someday, somewhere, Trevor?s dream really did come true? Maybe it hasn't changed my life. Maybe it never will. But it certainly gave me plenty of food for thought...


There ? now I?ve Paid It Forward!

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