Wonder When You'll Miss Me

wonder when you'll miss me.

In Wonder When You'll Miss Me by Amanda Davis a fifteen year old named Faith Duckle is raped by some boys from her school underneath the bleachers during Homecoming. She is tormented and newly thin after being known as a fat girl, so she decides to get revenge. Her sweet revenge turns out to be not so sweet when she has to run away from home to the circus to find her friend Charlie after she realizes the police will be after her. Faith soon finds her place in the circus as Annabelle and trains to become and aerialist performer.
Faith Duckle is a fifteen year old who is gone astray in the world after returning from a mental type hospital. She is now thin after being corpulent for so long. Sad and lonely she just wants to alleviate her mind after being raped during homecoming by her peers. Starling Yates is Faith's roommate at the hospital. Starling is always bright and full of life. Starling, however is fixated with dying and wants to die. She ends up killing herself. Charlie Yates is Starlings older brother who works with Faith at a restaurant called Clark's. He is gay and Faith knows more about him then she admits, like knowing how he saved Starling from her many suicide attempts. Faith later finds that Charlie has a serious drug problem and everything he appeared to be was a lie.
"I put my chin on my knees. But I wasn't going to do that. Tomorrow the circus would load out and move to Gleryton and I would go with the show, And if someone managed to notice the strong blonde girl lugging equipment for the aerialists, then so be it. Whatever was going to happen would happen, but I didn't want to be afraid anymore. Let them judge me for what I did. I could pick out everyone one of those boys, and turn them in. Everyone." _ Faith Duckle
This passage demonstrates the whole idea behind the book, that people should learn to accept who they are. Faith was constantly running in the mental and physical sense from things she was afraid of. It shows her defining moment in a way because she decides that she is not going to run anymore, she is going to live her life. Finally Faith can be free from herself and do as she pleases because she has learned to accept that things aren't going to be perfect and she needs to take some risks. Faith has finally stopped running.
I strongly agree with the points in this book because people should learn to accept themselves and not to let others push them around, like Faith was pushed around. The only serious error in this book is Faith's choice to hurt Tony. I feel this part of the book is overly drastic and not necessary, she was planning on running anyway. This book has a new and unusual idea because Faith runs away to the circus. Most people say they are going to run away with the circus as a joke but in this book Faith lives out this idea in a realistic sense. This book relates to people's lives because everyone is a little bit insecure and hesitant to take risks. In this book you can see how taking a risk got Faith further in her life.

Definetly a page turner

Wonder When You¿ll Miss Me is about a girl named Faith Duckle. When Faith was 15 she was fat and not well liked because she was that way. So when seven (7) guys took her under the bleachers at Homecoming, Faith felt liked and special. However, while under the bleachers, Faith was attacked by the boys. A year after the Homecoming incident and Faith lost a lot of weight. Faith may have lost all the weight, but she was still followed around by her old fat self. Faith got a job at Clark¿s restaurant and there she met Charlie, a person that she would see as her one and only true friend. She would lose him, then throughout the book she slowly but surely finds him again. After taking revenge on one of the boys that attacked Faith changed her image and had everyone, including the ¿Fat Girl¿ call her Annabelle. ¿Annabelle¿ ran away and ended up finding herself fighting the Fat Girl at one of the circus grounds in town. After being found rolling around in the dirt by one of the circus members, Annabelle is taken and then later asked to join the circus as a groom for elephants and horses. The book goes through Annabelle¿s adventures as a groom and her growth as a person while in the circus. Although Annabelle does not return home after the incident at her school, she does eventually realize that the circus will eventually move into her home state, and soon enough into her home town. As she prepares to face her past, Annabelle experiences another part of circus life as she goes from high school to high-wire. This book is a page turner and it gives a different look into a troubled teen¿s life and the different kind of adventure she takes to find out truths about herself. That is what makes Wonder When You¿ll Miss Me a great book for anybody to read.

Very unusual book piques interest in the circus

This is the story of an overweight, unpopular teen-age girl who is gang-raped under the bleachers at the high school stadium and consequently has a total mental breakdown and loses her memory of the incident. After a year's hospitalization, she returns to the school as a thinner and more attractive girl. She is particularly friendly to a popular boy and notices that people are whispering whenever she is seen with him. In a sudden flashback she remembers that he was the one who held her down while she was being raped. She plots her revenge and one day during the lunch period she slashes him with an axe and flees the school to seek out a loyal male friend who has joined the circus. She begs to become employed by this circus and they finally agree to let her have the job of taking care of the elephants--this involves a lot of mucking up manure. Most of the book is involved with her life in the circus and all the misfits that belong. Even though I have never been particularly interested in circuses and carnivals, I found this book fascinating. It is also suspenseful (sp?)and one of those books you 'Can't put down.'

Very Unhappy With My Choice

I purchased this book to bring on vacation, and I have to admit, I was very disappointed. I thought it was a very slow read and seemed very silly throughtout. If you are looking for something deep that has meaning, this is not the book for you.

Davis's First and Last Novel is a Remarkable Tale

The reason I purchased this book back in the spring of 2003 was because I read the obit of Amanda Davis in the Greenville (SC) News. She was with her parents in a small private plane being piloted by her father, ironically traveling between cities for bookstore appearances to promote Wonder When You'll Miss Me, when the plane crashed in the mountains of North Carolina. I thought to myself as I read the obit that I wanted to see what fictional creation, what novel, this woman had brought to the world while alive because it would be her only one. And oh my goodness, how I was richly rewarded! I cross-referenced this novel in a similar review to The Probable Future by Alice Hoffman. Both are coming of age stories which feature teenage girls trying out their 'powers' for the first time. Faith Duckle is trying to understand the meaning of and ultimately shed the ghost that haunts her, just as Stella Sparrow tries to reconcile herself with her visions of death and demise. Amanda Davis may have lived on to create many more Hoffmanesque characters like Faith Duckle, but sadly we will never know the extent of her creative gift. We can only come to know and love Faith Duckle, and that we certainly do. We will wonder what other great stories Davis might have given the world just as Faith wonders when she will be missed by the world.

funny, exciting, sad, poignant

a high school girl is brutally abused at a homecoming football game, sent to a loony bin, then returns thin and haunted by the ghost of her formerly fat self. in this funny, thrilling, poignant tale, we watch faith duckle on her odyssey from fear to revenge, from home to highwire. in a story that moves deftly between the emotional and external (circus life especially) we see a rags-to-riches arc of the psyche. we follow faith on an intimate tour of depression, survival, suburban angst and circus antics as she travels in search of love, identity and freedom.

Mourn Her

I just came from Mandy's funeral. She and her parents were killed in a plane crash on Saturday, March 15 2003. I hope that everyone realizes how lucky they are to have gotten the chance to read this wonderful novel and mourn the fact that it will be the only one.

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