How could one teenage boy’s life elicit other kids’ first experiences — even after he dies? Nine interconnected stories from nine top YA writers. Kev’s the first kid their age to die. And now, even though he’s dead, he’s not really gone. Even now his choices are touching the people he left behind. Ellen Hopkins reveals what two altar boys (and one altar girl) might get up to at the cemetery. Rita Williams-Garcia follows one aimless teen as he finds a new life in his new job — at the mortuary. Will Weaver turns a lens on Kevin’s sister as she collects his surprising effects — and makes good use of them. Here, in nine stories, we meet people who didn’t know Kevin, friends from his childhood, his ex-girlfriend, his best friend, all dealing with the fallout of his death. Being a teenager is a time for all kinds of firsts — first jobs, first loves, first good-byes, firsts that break your heart and awaken your soul. It’s an initiation of sorts, and it can be brutal. But on the other side of it is the rest of your life.
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- One Death, Nine Stories
One Death, Nine Stories
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Age Range
12+
Release Date
August 26, 2014
ISBN
0763652857
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2 reviews
Really Neat Anthology
Overall rating
3.7
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What I Liked:
One Death, Nine Stories didn’t really scream Christina book, but I couldn’t resist the premise of the anthology. It actually turned out to be much cooler than I was even expecting. I thought they’d be essentially companion stories by different people associated with the deceased. That’s true, but they’re also interlocking and codependent. It’s more of a cohesive novel than I was expecting. It’s a multiple POV novel from nine different authors. One Death, Nine Stories is a really neat idea and I hope to see more collaborations like this one in the future.
Of course, I probably wouldn’t have taken a reading risk like this one had the book not been so short. I started One Death, Nine Stories at 10 PM last night and had two stories left by midnight, even though I wasn’t very focused. It’s only 140 pages of stories, with the rest of the page count being associated material like author bios. It’s an easy risk to take, because, like it or not, it doesn’t take a huge chunk of your reading time. In my case, the risk paid off.
Singularly, the stories mostly aren’t subject matter that I would want to read as a book, but the way they all tie together is amazing. The best example is Ellen Hopkins’ story. I didn’t really like it because the first person POV is this guy Mick, who has really racist and sexist attitudes. He didn’t learn anything and I wasn’t a fan of that. However, at that point, you don’t really know too much about the deceased and, in learning more about Kevin, I had a bit of a new stance on Mick by the end. The stories really do impact one another.
Kevin Nicholas we see first as a body in a bag. He’s tall, but that’s almost all we know. Then we see him as an altar boy, having his first sexual experience. Some of the stories are memories of him in his youth, while others are as recent as a couple of days before he died. Some of the stories really focus on Kevin’s impact on the person’s life, while, in others, his death is merely a launching off point for things that person needs to deal with because they didn’t know Kevin at all. In the beginning, all the reader sees is the mourning family and the expressions of sadness at his loss, but the picture becomes less simplistic with all the new information in each story.
As is not usually the case with anthologies, there wasn’t a single story that dragged. They were all fast-paced and interesting. I will say, though, that I didn’t really get why one story was in there. It’s from the POV of someone whose cousin knew Kevin and he sees about the death on Facebook. He starts thinking about Kevin’s death a bit, sure, but mostly it’s about his football practices. I think the death was supposed to have some strange impact on how he lives his life, but that wasn’t really conveyed effectively to me. It wasn’t a bad story per se, but I didn’t think it fit as well with the others.
The Final Verdict:
If you enjoy novels that experiment with different formats or are interested in author collaborations, I urge you to check out One Death, Nine Stories. It’s different from a lot of YA or, actually, NA, since the characters are 18 and over for the most part and, hey, it’s super short so why not?
One Death, Nine Stories didn’t really scream Christina book, but I couldn’t resist the premise of the anthology. It actually turned out to be much cooler than I was even expecting. I thought they’d be essentially companion stories by different people associated with the deceased. That’s true, but they’re also interlocking and codependent. It’s more of a cohesive novel than I was expecting. It’s a multiple POV novel from nine different authors. One Death, Nine Stories is a really neat idea and I hope to see more collaborations like this one in the future.
Of course, I probably wouldn’t have taken a reading risk like this one had the book not been so short. I started One Death, Nine Stories at 10 PM last night and had two stories left by midnight, even though I wasn’t very focused. It’s only 140 pages of stories, with the rest of the page count being associated material like author bios. It’s an easy risk to take, because, like it or not, it doesn’t take a huge chunk of your reading time. In my case, the risk paid off.
Singularly, the stories mostly aren’t subject matter that I would want to read as a book, but the way they all tie together is amazing. The best example is Ellen Hopkins’ story. I didn’t really like it because the first person POV is this guy Mick, who has really racist and sexist attitudes. He didn’t learn anything and I wasn’t a fan of that. However, at that point, you don’t really know too much about the deceased and, in learning more about Kevin, I had a bit of a new stance on Mick by the end. The stories really do impact one another.
Kevin Nicholas we see first as a body in a bag. He’s tall, but that’s almost all we know. Then we see him as an altar boy, having his first sexual experience. Some of the stories are memories of him in his youth, while others are as recent as a couple of days before he died. Some of the stories really focus on Kevin’s impact on the person’s life, while, in others, his death is merely a launching off point for things that person needs to deal with because they didn’t know Kevin at all. In the beginning, all the reader sees is the mourning family and the expressions of sadness at his loss, but the picture becomes less simplistic with all the new information in each story.
As is not usually the case with anthologies, there wasn’t a single story that dragged. They were all fast-paced and interesting. I will say, though, that I didn’t really get why one story was in there. It’s from the POV of someone whose cousin knew Kevin and he sees about the death on Facebook. He starts thinking about Kevin’s death a bit, sure, but mostly it’s about his football practices. I think the death was supposed to have some strange impact on how he lives his life, but that wasn’t really conveyed effectively to me. It wasn’t a bad story per se, but I didn’t think it fit as well with the others.
The Final Verdict:
If you enjoy novels that experiment with different formats or are interested in author collaborations, I urge you to check out One Death, Nine Stories. It’s different from a lot of YA or, actually, NA, since the characters are 18 and over for the most part and, hey, it’s super short so why not?
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Interesting Idea, but Not For Me
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Review Found: literarychaos.com
To be frank, this anthology was not for me. I was so excited by the idea of so many well-known authors coming together to create an anthology based around one central character. I had such high hopes for this book, but in the end, it just didn't live up to my expectations. I think that the biggest flaw for me was the fact that I really had a hard time trying to connect that stories to one another, it just felt too disjointed for my liking.
Some of the stories, particularly the first couple, were really interesting and I could understand how they were connected to one another, they really helped build Kevin's character and give us an insight into his history, but many of the later stories lacked the cohesion and felt as if they didn't really belong in this anthology. I felt like they could have added in some different stories that would have given the book more depth and helped to interconnect the stories better. I also wish that this story would have had a better conclusion. The last story just left me hanging, and not in the exciting cliffhanger way. It just felt as if another story was needed to try and tie everything together.
This being said I can appreciate what the writers were attempting to do. It must be difficult to try and create one cohesive story with so many different writers and storylines going, and I commend them for their efforts. I like the idea of interconnecting the stories and would be open to reading more like it in the future, however, this one, at least for me, fell flat.
To be frank, this anthology was not for me. I was so excited by the idea of so many well-known authors coming together to create an anthology based around one central character. I had such high hopes for this book, but in the end, it just didn't live up to my expectations. I think that the biggest flaw for me was the fact that I really had a hard time trying to connect that stories to one another, it just felt too disjointed for my liking.
Some of the stories, particularly the first couple, were really interesting and I could understand how they were connected to one another, they really helped build Kevin's character and give us an insight into his history, but many of the later stories lacked the cohesion and felt as if they didn't really belong in this anthology. I felt like they could have added in some different stories that would have given the book more depth and helped to interconnect the stories better. I also wish that this story would have had a better conclusion. The last story just left me hanging, and not in the exciting cliffhanger way. It just felt as if another story was needed to try and tie everything together.
This being said I can appreciate what the writers were attempting to do. It must be difficult to try and create one cohesive story with so many different writers and storylines going, and I commend them for their efforts. I like the idea of interconnecting the stories and would be open to reading more like it in the future, however, this one, at least for me, fell flat.
Good Points
interesting concept
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