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    Drawn Away
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    Drawn Away
    Unavailable
    Drawn Away
    Ebook182 pages3 hours

    Drawn Away

    By Holly Bennett

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    One minute Jack's in math class. The next, he's on a dark, cobblestoned, empty street. Empty, that is, except for a skinny girl wrapped in a threadbare shawl. "Matches, mister?" she asks, and just like that, Jack's life collides with one of Hans Christian Andersen's grimmest tales. And just when he has almost convinced himself it was just a weird dream, it happens again.

    Suddenly, Jack's ideas about what is "real" or "possible" no longer apply. While he and his new girlfriend, Lucy, struggle to understand who or what the Match Girl is, they come to realize they must also find a way to keep Jack away from her. The Match Girl is not just a sad, lonely soul; she's dangerous. And each time Jack is drawn into her gray, solitary world, she becomes stronger, more alive...and more attached to Jack.

    She wants to keep Jack for her very own, even if that means he will die.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateJan 17, 2017
    ISBN9781459812543
    Unavailable
    Drawn Away
    Author

    Holly Bennett

    Holly Bennett is the author of numerous young adult novels, all published by Orca. She lives in Peterborough, Ontario, where she enjoys singing, being in nature, hanging out with her family, Scrabble and, of course, reading.

    Read more from Holly Bennett

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    Reviews for Drawn Away

    3.5/5

    17 ratings10 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      The beginning third of this book was really interesting and I enjoyed it. The last 2 thirds were less so. I realize that most YA writers feel the need to have love stories in every book. Not really sure why, but some times they add to the plot and are not distracting. This time it did add to the plot to an extent, but I felt that it was distracting and the need for it plot wise could have been handled a different way. It was a well written story with an interesting concept, but I felt it fell apart a bit in the end.
    • 3/5
      One minute Jack's in math class. The next, he's on a dark, cobblestoned, empty street. Empty, that is, except for a skinny girl wrapped in a threadbare shawl. "Matches, mister?" she asks, and just like that, Jack's life collides with one of Hans Christian Andersen's grimmest tales. And just when he has almost convinced himself it was just a weird dream, it happens again. Suddenly, Jack's ideas about what is "real" or "possible" no longer apply. While he and his new girlfriend, Lucy, struggle to understand who or what the Match Girl is, they come to realize they must also find a way to keep Jack away from her. The Match Girl is not just a sad, lonely soul; she's dangerous. And each time Jack is drawn into her gray, solitary world, she becomes stronger, more alive...and more attached to Jack. She wants to keep Jack for her very own, even if that means he will die.
    • 4/5
      Jack, a seventeen-year-old diabetic, has just moved to a new town, but apart from starting a new school and monitoring his condition, now he's also having weird visions of a Victorian waif, the Little Match Girl, who seems to want something from him. Jack and his new friend Lucy must discover why Jack is having these visions, and how to stop them before Jack is pulled into the Little Match Girl's world forever.The plot was fairly good and the characters were interesting, but the writing was utilitarian. If you're a big Hans Christian Andersen fan, this might be worth a read, but it's not one I'd recommend across the board.
    • 4/5
      I love retellings of fairy tales - and I've never read a retelling of the Match Stick Girl before, so this really drew my attention. An easy read, but very engrossing. I also appreciated that one of the main characters had diabetes, and it was worked into the story well so that it didn't feel tacked on, but wasn't all about it either.
    • 4/5
      If you never read Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl, it goes something like this: A poor little girl out in the street attempts to sell matches out in the cold. Everyone ignores this child. She is freezing and eventually attempts to light the matches to keep herself warm. It does not work. She dies.Okay there's a little more to it than that, but I'm trying to make a point here.It's kind of a creepy story.Holly Bennett imagines the fairy tale is based on a real little girl named Klara in the paranormal YA "Drawn Away." Seventeen year old Jack is in math class one second, and the next he finds himself in a dark and misty street in another time, where the only other person is an eerie and mysterious scrawny little girl with large blue eyes. She doesn't seem to be terribly lucid, and she tries to sell Jack some matches.Jack is back in math class again. He brushes it off, but these episodes continue to occur, and Match Girl becomes more lucid, and gains a fixation with Jack. She wants him to stay where she is. Enter Lucy, a schoolmate with a checkered past who has a strained relationship with her mother, and an interesting connection to Jack's little problem.Drawn Away is a quick, easy read. Though I wouldn't exactly call the book a fairy tale retelling, fans of such a genre will enjoy this one. Intertwined throughout the novel is the theme of family and healing with regards to Lucy and her mother, making her story just as important and endearing as Jack's. The old letters and diaries the two teens find both transport and compel, and while we never truly find out why Jack gets lured to Klara in the first place, the story wraps up in a satisfying conclusion.
    • 4/5
      *I received an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.Well, I kind of loved this book. The story was a combination of good ol'fashion contemporary YA and the fairy tale, The Match Girl. I loved the way the author blended a touch of history into the modern part of the story. We learn a little backstory about the Match Girl from Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale. The writing was simple, which I liked. Not every YA needs to read like a Diablo Cody screenplay. The story was unique. I've never read anything quite like it. The Match Girl's story (as written by H.C.A) is a sad one, but the life and backstory that the author wrote for her (and her mother) was heartbreaking. More so, perhaps, because countless children lived lives just like hers. I loved that there is a bit of everything in this book. It has romance, mystery, fantasy, even a bit of suspense. Something for everyone. The only thing that didn't really work for me was the internal dialogue of Jack and Lucy. Their thoughts see-sawed between what a normal seventeen year old would think and then *poof* they would sound like they were forty. It was just plain weird to read a high schooler thinking to himself that he needed to urinate. It was a little jarring. All in all, a really fun book. I would definitely recommend it to anyone that loves fairy tales.
    • 3/5
      I received this book from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers in exchange for an honest review.This book wasn't perfect, but I did enjoy it. I liked that the story had elements that don't present themselves often. I've never come across The Little Match girl in other books. Also there is a lot of detail about the main character's diabetes, which isn't common in YA novels. Now for the negatives: My favorite part of the book was the historical scenes that discussed the backstory of the Little Match Girl, but it was a very very small part of the book. Another problem I had with the book was it never explained WHY the main character was having these experiences where he finds himself with the Match Girl. I would recommend this book to fans of YA who like contemporary novels with paranormal elements who are looking for a easy read.
    • 3/5
      A senior in highschool, Jack and his family are new in town. While sitting in math class, Jack suddenly becomes transported to another time a place. To an antiquated town with a waif of a girl selling matches on the street corner. Although spooked at first by the realistic feeling of the encounter, Jack, a type one diabetic, shrugs off the strange occurrence as a low blood sugar episode and soon doesn't think much of it. Until it happens again.....and again. Each time the match girl becomes more animated and fearsome. With the help of his new friend (and love interest Lucy) the two race against the clock to figure out who this match girl is, how their lives are connected, and how to stop her dangerous obsession with Jack, before he is drawn away into her world forever. I have to say, this was a really unique twist on the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale. While a short read, it was packed with an interesting plot and relatable characters. I found it refreshing and unique to have a main character someone who lives with a chronic illness, even more so to have that illness play a major role in the story line and serve as a point of conflict. Learning the backstory of the match girl and how her life from the past is inexplicably intertwined with the main characters from the present was interesting and fun to follow. The conflict resolution was a tad rushed to me, but overall I enjoyed the read and was happy with the ending. Of note, while the books target age is listed as 12 and up, I would say it isn't quite appropriate for the middle school crowd given some strong language and sexual situations. 
    • 4/5
      Weaving a story told by three narrators – Jack, his girlfriend Lucy and Klara (the Match Girl), Bennett has created a modern day spin on Andersen’s rather grim tale of the poor little Match Girl. This dark mystery/ghost story has an interesting twist to it: a compelling backstory for the Match Girl as being more than just a fictional character created by Andersen. One thing I tend to struggle with when reading YA literature is some characters tend to come across as either “old beyond their years” or exceedingly juvenile. Jack and Lucy come across as the twelfth-graders they are supposed to be and Bennett does a great job managing both plot and character development as the story progresses. In the process of creating Jack, Bennett has provided him with a plausible reason for his unexplained “trips” into Klara’s world while with Lucy, Bennett has created plausible parallels in Lucy and Klara’s stories. Given the historical fiction reader that I am, it comes as no surprise that I really liked the sections of the book dealing with Klara’s backstory. I thought that was really well done! Overall, a good modern twist on a well know tale and a YA story that I can easily recommend readers of YA fiction and fans of retelling of Hans Christian Andersen tale.
    • 4/5
      DRAWN AWAY by Holly Bennett is something of an urban ghost story novel, something of a literary mashup. It draws on Hans Christian Andersen’s heart-rending tale of the Little Match Girl to tell a contemporary story about mothers’ love, romantic obsession, and cooperative problem solving.Jack is an ordinary guy living a fairly ordinary life when he is pulled into a shadowy, misty space where he meets a thin, intense girl. Then zap, he’s back in the real world and flirting with Lucy, his soon-to-be girlfriend. When Lucy and Jack discover they’ve both encountered the thin girl, Klara (who turns out to be the ghost of the real-life inspiration for the Little Match Girl), they must work together to keep Klara from luring Jack back to the shadow world forever.I liked this novel; it has a brisk-moving plot and raises issues of both historical and contemporary significance. The Klara subplot invites readers to consider domestic violence, the consequences of poverty, and the plight of women in a morally punitive society. The plot thread of Jack’s diabetes turns his insulin pump into a character and normalizes the process of managing the disease. The figure of Hans Christian Andersen introduces themes of authorship and responsibility, and also allows the novel to represent a very difficult, and frankly harsh era, in an intriguing manner. That said, the Andersen subplot is something of a tangent; it is resolved a bit too tidily through Lucy and her mother. I also found the relationship between Jack and Lucy unusually pitched. Although they are seventeen and eighteen years old, and do engage in some behaviours of older teens (such as drinking alcohol and smoking pot), their romantic relationship is very restrained. But perhaps this decision reflects more about the sensibilities of classrooms and public librarians than it does about modern teens.In short, DRAWN AWAY is an energetic, accessible novel for grades eight and up. It’s likely to appeal to readers interested in the recent revival of fairy tales through popular texts like INTO THE WOODS, ONCE UPON A TIME, and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (as well as the junior retellings of the WHATEVER AFTER series). DRAWN AWAY could also provide a stepping-stone to more sophisticated retellings like BEAUTY by Sheri S. Tepper and THE SNOW QUEEN by Joan D. Vinge.