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    Friday Never Leaving
    Friday Never Leaving
    Friday Never Leaving
    Ebook306 pages4 hours

    Friday Never Leaving

    By Vikki Wakefield

    4.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In this wrenching, mesmerizing coming-of-age novel that Kirkus Reviews calls “lyrical, suspenseful, and haunting,” Friday discovers what makes a family—and how to define home.

    Friday Brown has never had a home. She and her mother live on the road, always on the move, running away from the past instead of putting down roots. Even when her mom dies, the only thing Friday knows how to do is keep moving.

    Her journey takes her to an abandoned house where a bunch of street kids are squatting, and an intimidating girl named Arden holds court. Friday gets initiated into the group, but her relationship with Arden is precarious, and it puts Friday—and anyone who befriends her—at risk. With the threat of a dangerous confrontation growing, Friday has to decide between returning to her isolated, transient life, or trying to help the people she’s come to care about—if she can make it out alive.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
    Release dateSep 10, 2013
    ISBN9781442486553
    Friday Never Leaving
    Author

    Vikki Wakefield

    Vikki Wakefield is the author of three award-winning novels: In-between Days, Friday Never Leaving, and All I Ever Wanted. She lives in Adelaide, Australia. Visit her at VikkiWakefield.com.

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    Reviews for Friday Never Leaving

    4.5/5

    25 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I was reluctant to read this book, maybe because of the front cover, however, I am really glad I finally picked it up. It took me a while to engage with the story, but once it moved to the country it became extremely addictive. There are some quite shocking characters and events throughout the book, but these are balanced by Friday, who is a strong, compassionate character, and Silence, whom I absolutely adored. I just wanted to bundle him up and take him home. "Friday Brown" is beautifully written, a credit to the author, and deals with some intense issues including homelessness, abuse, grief, loss, friendship and family. If nothing else, this book will make you appreciate all that you have and see those less fortunate in a more compassionate light. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Now this was a crazy, interesting book. Very well-written, with unique and strange characters.

      Friday's mother passes away, leaving her with a grandfather she can't connect with, a legacy of stories that may or may not be true, and an insatiable wanderlust. She hooks up with a gang of street kids, and even though she is scared of a deeper connection, she is desperate to belong to something. The charismatic Arden adopts her into the gang and Friday slowly realizes the dangers both of being alone - and of getting too close.
    • 4/5
      Seventeen-year-old Friday Brown is on the run -- running to escape memories of her mother and of the family curse. And of a grandfather who'd like her to stay. She's lost, alone and afraid. Silence, a street kid, finds Friday and she joins him in a gang led by beautiful, charismatic Arden. When Silence is involved in a crime, the gang escapes to a ghost town in the outback. In Murungal Creek, the town of never leaving, Friday must face the ghosts of her past. She will learn that sometimes you have to stay to finish what you started -- and often, before you can find out who you are, you have to become someone you were never meant to be.
    • 5/5
      Friday Brown believes she is cursed. All the women who have died in her family have done so around or in water. Even her own mother died of pneumonia - her lungs drowned. At seventeen, she is cast out by her grandfather because she reminds him too much of his lost daughter. Friday is on her own on the streets.She befriends a boy named Silence. He's strange...with a troubled past he doesn'ttalk about. Silence lives with a group of squatters headed up by the charismatic, but cruel, Arden. They survive by petty crime, and their wits most of the time, with Arden running the show. Friday resolves to leave and take Silence with her, but her money has been stolen and she is inextricably drawn to Arden in way she doesn't really understand. When the cops start sniffing around the squat, Arden packs up the crew and they flee to the bush, where Friday feels more at those than the rest of the group. Arden feels threatened by this and applies pressure to Friday with physical violence. After a rain storm, the dried creek bed they have been camping in begins to flood and Friday and the rest must again flee. In the confusion Silence disappears and things take a dark and tragic turn. Friday finds herself taking a stand - for herself, for her forebears and for Silence. She challenges her fate, and realises that love might just save her.This book has unforgettable characters. While I found Friday to be sympathetic as a protagonist, the one I really connected with was Silence. Damaged by his past, he just wants to be loved and to feel safe. Arden is a deftly painted villain, as vile as any I have read.Wakefield's writing is superb. Economical, but lyrical, and full of wonderful imagery. The twists and turns of the plot are completely believable and the turning point of the novel was a complete punch in the guts, but achingly beautiful too.An utter triumph. I am in awe of Vikki Wakefield and her amazing talent.

    Book preview

    Friday Never Leaving - Vikki Wakefield

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