Slipping Reality

A labor of love and a beautiful story

Astounding not only because of the age of its young author (she's 17, friends!) but because of the sheer honesty and the seductive beauty inherent in this relatively simple story. Katelyn is a teenager desperate for normalcy, who wants only to escape the world in which her brother Matthew is struggling with cancer. Katelyn's parents are devoted to their son, and Katelyn wrestles with the silent, familiar problems faced by the healthy, forgotten, grieving sibling: misplaced guilt, confusion, denial, envy, bitterness, fear, and tremendous loneliness. When two strange men appear out of Katelyn's own imagination (the lovable Cedric and the kind, wise Tristan), Katelyn seems at last to have found a way out, to escape. But even as fantasy begins to take over, the grave prognosis of Matthew's illness becomes increasingly real. He needs her more than ever, but Katelyn has already slipped away.

SLIPPING REALITY is a story of hope, of grief, of losing yourself entirely, and then finding your way back. While the above synopsis might sound somewhat contrived, the novel is not. The prose is enchanting and Katelyn's voice is both kind and mature. She is not your average teenager--she is imaginative, curious, philosophical and at times morbidly funny, but she is the same time the confused young girl accessible to any reader. The fact that this book has been self-published may turn off some--do not allow it! This book deserves to be read, and is more than the first novel of a young author. It is a dear and graceful tale, told with the skill and consciousness of a much older writer. Yet the voice is fresh, and the writing clear. Read this, and fall in love--then go out and buy it for everyone you know.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

Slipping Reality is a Winner!!!!

A wonderful read based on the authors brothers fight with pediatric cancer. Her use of vocabulary, syntax and character development is superb and a triumph for such a young writer.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Reviewed by Lisa McCombs for Readers Favorite Katie should be a

Reviewed by Lisa McCombs for Readers Favorite

Katie should be a typical teenage girl doing typical teenage girls things; and to her peers she is. She goes to school where she tolerates biology class, aces English class (she's already read all the assigned novels) and excels in art class. One would think that she and her best gal pal share an exciting high school social life, but at the end of the school day, Katie goes home to an atmosphere of sadness and anxiety. Katie's brother Matthew is suffering his third and most likely final round of cancer. While Katie's mother devotes her every waking moment researching possible life-saving medical procedures and Matthew approaches each day with a courageous smile, Katie finds herself drowning in an existence void of escape from sickness and false hopes. Just as her spirit is at its lowest point, two men enter her life to comfort and carry her away from the dark realities of her daily life. Who are they? WHAT are they? Guardian angels?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Slipping Reality". Although it is categorized as young adult I believe this is marketable to a wider reading audience. Often the focus is on the immediate victim of terminal illness and younger family members are secondary in the grieving process. In this fictional adaptation of living with terminal illness, Emily Beaver gives her first hand impression of actually losing an older brother to cancer. The author comments in her personal notes that she wishes she could have found the escape that her main character did during the "real time" events of her brother's last days. Wonderful read!

This novel made me very emotional. In the face of a horrible rea

This novel made me very emotional. In the face of a horrible reality, is it okay to slip away into your imagination?

Katelyn's brother Matthew has been dealing with terminal cancer for 3 years. Her way of coping is to escape into her imagination, where she has two friends, who support her.
As Matthew gets worse, she delves deeper into this fantasy world she has created, until she can no longer tell what is real and what is not.

I found it slightly strange that the love interest for this story was between Katelyn and her imaginary friend Cedric. This part I found was slightly weird, but it really did just add to the story.

This book is heart-warming and emotional - I definitely recommend reading it - especially to someone who isn't quite sure how to deal with serious things such as cancer and death.

My review copy of Slipping Reality was generously provided by th

My review copy of Slipping Reality was generously provided by the good folks at JKS Communications on behalf of the author, Emily Beaver.

Slipping Reality. The title literally says it all. Katelyn Emerson's life kind of sucks. Seriously. Her brother - her best friend and confidant - is dying of cancer before her very eyes. She is stuck in an otherwise boring and average teenage world in which she is always and forever known as the-girl-with-the-sick-brother. So what does she do to deal? She develops her own reality. Literally. Complete with a boyfriend and a mentor who appear exactly when she needs them, to provide exactly what she needs - be it a vacation getaway, hugs and kisses, or someone to share their own encounter with death.

These are more than imaginary friends though. Katelyn's versions have weight and substance. She physically interacts with them - or at least seems to. And yet, as the story develops, it becomes apparent that only she can see them. And one of them repeatedly tells her, straight out, that he isn't real.

Wild stuff.

There is a very intriguing premise here and a very clever construct. The concept of mental retreat to deal with trauma isn't new ground psychologically speaking, but the deft handling of it here, in a YA context, is - at least to me. I must confess that I felt that the story could have benefited from some additional editing (things jumped around a bit more than I like on a few occasions, and while sometimes this was okay because it seemed indicative of the scattered state of Katelyn's mind, most of the time it was just confusing) and felt that the ending tied things up altogether too neatly. At least, I felt that way until I read the biographical notes at the end of the book and learned that Emily Beaver wrote the story when she was fourteen in response to her own brother's illness and subsequent death. Wow.

I still think that a little more editing would have helped strengthen what was otherwise a strong concept. But now I'm glad to see a neat, tidy ending - because I hope it means that things came together for Emily in as neat and tidy a way as possible. Katelyn's/Emily's journey is a moving one. The shifts between realities are trippy and confusing at first - in the best possible way. For a while, I honestly did not know that Katelyn's new friends weren't "real" in the everyone-can-see-them sense. I entered into Katelyn's reality for a little while, and while I may not have stayed right there throughout the course of the whole book (there were a few meandering plot points and a few spots where things got a little predictable for me), the time I spent there was unusual and surprising and sometimes altogether odd (in a good way). On behalf of your readers, thank you Emily, for your efforts to share your experiences with us.

if you have any depth of sensitivity, this book is for you

(I'm a person of few words of my own in the written form...)

Highly Recommend for anyone from the age of 13 to 99 (sorry if your 12 or 100)

This was a wonderful read, just could not put it down. The author does a great job bringing you along this journey of emotional struggle, not only with dealing with a terminally ill sibling but the struggle every child has in transitioning from the idealistic world of youth to the reality of their life. I am totally stunned to know the author was 14, I would not be surprised to learn that the age was transposed and she is really 41.

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