Never Ending

by Martyn Bedford Narrated by Melody Grove

Overview

How can she live with what she did?
Shiv's younger brother, Declan, died while their family was on holiday in Greece. Shiv doesn't know how to live any more - she is tormented by guilt. Now she finds herself at the Korsakoff Clinic, undergoing a most unorthodox therapy, which is often painful. The clinic must help her find a way to live again. But first, they will make her face what really happened to her brother.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

01/20/2014
Fifteen-year-old Siobhan, who goes by Shiv, feels responsible for her brother Declan’s death during what started out as a blissful family vacation in Greece. Though no one else believes that Declan’s death is Shiv’s fault, she feels the need to be held accountable. When Bedfyrd’s story opens, she is being checked into the Korsakoff Clinic, an unconventional therapeutic institution for people who have suffered “traumatic bereavement.” Shiv and a handful of teenage residents submit to alternative therapies designed to help them understand the losses that have brought them to the clinic. Bedford (Flip) narrates in third-person, shifting between Shiv’s present-day interactions and recovery and her memories of her family’s time in Greece, during which romance, jealousy, and sibling antagonism helped propel the unfolding tragedy. The author does a lovely job of highlighting the in-jokes, good-natured ribbing, and high-running emotions of a family on vacation together (making Declan’s death feel all the more real), and he draws out the mystery behind what actually happened to Declan, creating a tension that will keep readers curious until the final page. Ages 14–up. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2014-01-04
An English teen can't stop blaming herself for her brother's death. Thanks to the headlines, all of Europe knows what happened to 15-year-old Shiv's brother one fateful night in Kyritos, Greece. Since then, she's been experiencing PTSD-like symptoms that put her into rages she can't remember and send illusions of her brother creeping across her vision. The two-pronged narrative shifts between the fateful family vacation in Greece and Shiv's inpatient therapy at the Korsakoff Clinic. What matters most is not so much whether or not Shiv had a hand in her brother's death, as she so accuses herself, but the relationships she builds with the other teen residents of the clinic and the arc of her treatment. Each session of therapy opens another window to Shiv's time in Greece before her brother's death—her crush on a handsome, 19-year-old Greek boy, days spent relaxing by the pool with her parents at the villa and the terrifying night her brother lost his life. The characters and the scenery are rendered with such photographic precision that readers will feel as though they're watching a film. They'll also find Bedford's compellingly blunt, sharply drawn narrative (laced with Salinger references) sometimes too painful to read as they experience the harsh treatments right alongside Shiv. The results, however, are absolutely worth it. Beautiful and illuminating but as hard as therapy. (Fiction. 14-18)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171540135
Publisher:	W. F. Howes Ltd
Publication date:	07/03/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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