Only Ever Always

by Penni Russon

Overview

Have you ever woken from a dream feeling it was more real than your world? Could there be someone exactly like you living another life? Claire lives in an ordinary world where everything is whole. But now she feels broken into pieces as her world is suddenly shattered with grief. The silvery notes of her music box help her escape from her pain into a dream world, into Clara's world. Clara's world has always been broken. Her fragmented life revolves around scavenging and swapping objects to survive. She is determined to face the sinister side of her cracked reality to save the only family she has ever known. But the cost may be more than she bargained for. Though Claire and Clara live in different worlds, their paths are set to collide when the people they love most are faced with death. But which world is the dream? Who is the dreamer? Penni Russon has written a spellbinding tale that stretches the imagination about what is possible.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781741761146
Publisher:	Allen & Unwin Pty., Limited
Publication date:	01/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 16 Years

About the Author

PENNI RUSSON writes, edits, and teaches creative writing. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband and three children.

Editorial Reviews

"Like the sound of the little loved music box that is so pivotal to the story, Only Ever Always is both deeply touching and strangely eerie, leaving the reader with a mixture of warmth and apprehension, yearning and wonder—about death, life, language, art, dreams and childhood. Fascinating and absolutely memorable."  —Ursula Dubosarsky, author, The Word Snoop

From the Publisher

This odd, convoluted fable feels incomplete and isn't an easy read, but its haunting imagery has staying power. Claire's first treasure was the music box Uncle Charlie gave her. When he's badly injured in a car accident he's unlikely to survive, Claire retreats into a world that mirrors her own. Everything and everyone in this looking-glass world is broken, including the music box that Clara, Claire's counterpart, buys with an IOU. Here, Claire escapes and eventually comes to terms with violent mortality. Its dwellings, like dollhouses, lack walls; denizens buy and sell broken detritus in a city broken in half by a wild, widening river. The powerful conceit almost sustains the novel but can't replace what's missing: characters readers care about. Readers never meet Charlie or see him interact with Claire, so what his loss means to her remains unclear, blunting the impact of her fugue. Readers aren't allowed to find their bearings in Claire's world before they're plunged into Clara's broken one (populated with far more vivid characters). The style clamors for readers' attention--conceptual quirks replace chapters; narration switches among first, second and third person--further distancing them from the tale being spun. Whether readers find it brilliantly original or obscurely self-indulgent, Russon's risk-taking should spark the best kind of literary debate. (author's note) (Fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews