Book Review
Title: Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: 5 Stars
The opening to Dying to Know You was funny and interesting. We are introduced to Karl who approaches his girlfriend, Fiorella’s favourite author who is also local to help him write letters. It turns out what Fiorella is a writer and wants Karl to bear good soul to her through this medium but Karl is dyslexic and struggles with writing hence him approaching the author. While the author had a busy life he sees some of himself in Karl and she’s to help him. Two interesting things to now are the story is told through the eyes of the author, who is make but unnamed and it also includes sections that are the authors notes from his conversations with Karl.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Karl continues meeting with the author working on the questions Fiorella have Karl. Karl seems to be a decent quiet as the author only had to make small corrections and changes to his answers but we learn more about Karl. His father died when he was 12 only 6 years before and he is still struggling with letting go and he seems to take great offense to someone in the pub making him out to be gay and in a relationship with the author. The author also seems to now that while Karl has some markets of dyslexia he doesn’t have any of the common ones and thinks that something else might be behind his inability to write well and that might explain him also being emotional stunted.
As we cross the ¼ mark on the novel, the author and Karl seem to be developing a level of trust between them. Karl begins really thinking about his feelings for Fiorella after speaking to the author and feels that going camping with her would allow him to express himself better than the letters because he is an action person compared to Fiorella, a word person. The author formats this into a letter for Fiorella and Karl writes to him explaining that they are going camping but is then met with two months of silence from Karl. One day Karl’s mother arrives at the author’s home and asks for him to explain his relationship with Karl. The author describes it as Karl helping to lift him out of the depression he was in after the death of his wife and giving him the motivation to write again. Karl’s mother then explains she is there because Fiorella dumped Karl and he has fallen into a deep depression, worse than when his father died and wants the author’s help of bringing him out of it and he agrees.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, the author gets in contact with Fiorella as she is the only person who knows what happened on that trip and willing to explain it to him. Fiorella isn’t happy with the author because in her eyes he helped Karl lie to her about the letters but that wasn’t the reason she broke up with him. While she doesn’t fully explain it, it seems that something happened that caused Karl to shut down emotionally and Fiorella couldn’t deal with these changes in his mood and personality and left. After this Karl disappears taking only his bike and his father’s picture and the author knows he might be planning to kill himself and he figures out where Karl is. When he arrives Karl isn’t in good shape but he simply sits and lets Karl speak in his own time and we might learn what really happened on the camping trip that causes the sudden breakdown in his relationship.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, we learn that Karl did something that scared Fiorella and when the author finally manages to speak to Karl about it, he realises some things about himself. Afterwards, Karl appears to slowly be coming out of his depression but when Fiorella learns he is ill, she wants to get back into contact with him and the author advises her to be careful. The author himself is also ill during this time and it seems to me like he might have a more serious illness. He was tested for prostate cancer before and it came back clean but the sign and symptoms seems to be there. Karl also finds an interest in metal sculptures and when he begins hiding in the shed, the author believes he might be creating something like what they saw because it would be the ideal way for Karl to truly express himself in the way Fiorella wanted.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, I wasn’t sure where the story was going but I was definitely hooked. The story seems to shift gears from a romance focused story to one about mental health and discovering yourself. Karl is working on metal sculptures and plans to make much bigger ones now he has figured out the process and while his mother is worried he won’t be able to support himself, he makes it clear to the author than he plans to continue his job as a plumber but continues his hobby on the side. He also expresses that this is something he needs to do to keep himself focused and moving forward. We also learn that Fiorella visited Karl and from her email to the author, the encounter doesn’t go well as she doesn’t understand what the art means to Karl while he completely understands what words mean to her meaning their relationship was always one sided. However, the author who has been documenting Karl’s journey wants to know why Karl seems to assessing Fiorella’s reaction to his workshop and why he reacted the way he did but he doesn’t know how to approach the subject with Karl and meanwhile his illness doesn’t seem to be going away or getting better.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, we get to see all these little pieces come together and this book turned out to be a lot more than I was expecting going into it and I really enjoyed it. Rather than being a fluffy, contemporary romance it turns out to be an introspective look at finding yourself through someone else’s eyes. Leaving the author unnamed allowed us the reader to step into his shoes and experience everything through his eyes which added another dimension to the story. A well deserved 5 stars read and I will definitely be checking out more of Chamber’s work in the future.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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