This coming of age story is told by John Keats as he relays everything that Byron and Shelly have told him. The characters are based on the well known Romantic poets. The tale is mostly about Byron, as he is the most outrageous of the three friends. It covers their lives together and apart throughout high school and jumps back between the present and the past as Shelly is dead and the boys are on a mission to release her ashes.
The novel is heavily based off of the personalities of poets, Shelly being a combination of two. In reading the note at the end of the book, you can see just how much was taken from their real lives. The drawback for me is that I felt nothing for any of these characters, there was no reason given for me to do so.
While many things were thrown into the story that should elicit a response (suicide, rape, poverty, sexuality, racism) they weren't written in a way to do so. This lack of emotion made me hesitate at even finishing the story. If you can get past that, the book does show you a wonderful look at how different people can be and why they do the things they do.
The characters were fully developed, but this was because they were real people, they were missing that extra something that a character often has when the author has made them their own.
- This reviewer also blogs at www.booksake.blogspot.com
- Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
- Date of Publication: February 8, 2011
- The authors website is http://www.tyrothbooks.com
