If Only

By Becky Citra

Fifteen-year-old Pam is assaulted when she and her twin brother, Danny, are walking home through the woods. Danny is frozen with fear and does nothing; luckily, Pam is rescued by a woman out walking her dog. Pam deals with the trauma by isolating herself while Danny struggles with the shame of not protecting his sister. His shame is compounded by their father's contempt, and Danny decides to redeem himself by finding Pam's attacker. In the process, he discovers a family secret, and Pam connects with new friends who help her regain her confidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Oct 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781459802872

Becky Citra

Becky Citra is the author of over twenty books, ranging from early chapter books to novels for young adults. She was an elementary school teacher for over twenty-five years and began writing for children in 1995. Becky's books have been shortlisted for and won many awards, including the Red Cedar Award, the Diamond Willow, the Silver Birch and the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize. She lives in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.

Reviews for If Only

[amandacharland_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a story about twins who experience an assault very differently. It divides them as they struggle to cope and face emotions of regret and guilt. The plot needs some work. There are many loose ends that never get tidied up. Readers can usually handle a detail or two, but there are far too many characters and smaller events that seem to hold no purpose. I'm reviewing this book after receiving an advanced reader's copy.

[68papyrus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If Only takes place in the spring of 1968. Danny and Pam are twin tenth graders who are being raised by their father. When Pam is assaulted while taking a shortcut home along a wooded path, Danny is too terrified to fend off her attacker. The book details Pam's struggle with coming to terms with the assault and being able to move forward with her lite. I enjoyed the book but thought it would have made more impact if everything wasn't resolved so easily. All the loose ends were tied up and all the problems were resolved which doesn't always happen in real life. I also would have liked more character development which would have added more depth to the story. Overall, If Only was an interesting read but it fell a bit short of my expectations. 3.5 stars.

[monicalynn-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Danny and Pam are twins who live with their father. The recently moved to a new town from their grandparents farm after their grandmother passing and their grandfather having to go into a home. Their father is off of work due to an injury and is not so with it all the time. Danny and Pam try to care for each other. One day while taking a short cut through the woods where they always walk. Danny and Pam are attacked, especially Pam, who is somewhat injured. Danny didn't feel he could do anything therefore, he feels guilty for not protecting his sister. Carol a neighbor came by with her dog Prince and scared off the attacker so luckily Pam is not raped just bruised and traumatized as is Danny for not protecting his sister.The story continues with their accounts of what happened, their trials of dealing with what happened. People talking about them. The meanness of teenagers and bullies at school and also figuring out who is actually responsible and not feeling like one of them should have done something more to protect each other. Their Dad comes around and works on getting a little better dealing with things too. A good moral story.

[stornelli-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pam and Danny are twins living with their widowed dad. They are attacked on a trail behind their home and spooked by it. While Pam befriends Carol who helps her cope and takes on a "mother" role, Danny cleverly becomes a detective and helps police solve the crime and arrest the assailant.

[jrlibrary · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Problems contained in this book were solved much too easily, and the ending happened much too fast.

[shelleydaugherty · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Twins are supposed to be bonded like no other people. But Danny and Pam have a chance encounter with danger one night; it seems they may be divided forever. Walking home after a movie, Danny has someone hold a knife to him and then they turn and attack his sister. Though Pam survives the attack with minor physical injuries, she has plenty of mental ones left to deal with, and so does Danny.The guilt they both feel over the event leaves them feeling divided. Danny feels there is more he should have done to protect Pam and he feels ashamed. Pam can’t help but feel if she had dressed differently or if she had acted some other way, that she would not have been a victim that night. Pam refuses to go to school for weeks, and she notices that not one of her “friends” has tried to see if she was okay. The more Danny and Pam are drawn into themselves the further they get from ever being close again.This book really examines an attack from multiple points of view. Sometimes victims have a hard time understanding they are not the only ones affected by the attack and many times they are not the only victim. In this story, the brother is just as much a victim because of what happened to his sister and what part he had to play in that event. When you go farther into the family history, you find the attack even affects their father from memories in his past. But through the hardship, this family just might find a way to come out better than they were before. A very moving and enlightening story about survival and family.

[lavermeer · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr. is murdered outside a hotel room. Across the continent, a girl is attacked on her way home from school while her twin cowers. Through the contrasts of history, a troubled story is set in motion.As its title suggests, IF ONLY is a story about struggling with regret and forgiveness. Danny wonders what he might have done differently on the day of the attack and how he might redeem himself in his sister's eyes. Pam wonders how she can face her peers and whether she somehow brought the attack on herself. Their injured, out-of-work father seems more inclined to blame them for the attack than to understand their fears, but he too is trying to escape a haunted past. Over several weeks, the twins, their friends, and their families learn to accept what's happened and move forward, as new experiences help Pam and Danny build a wider context for understanding their increasingly adult world.There are quite a few loose threads at the end of the novel. The social studies teacher who refers to Martin Luther King Jr.'s death never walks on again, the classmate who embarrasses Pam and is then embarrassed in turn disappears, and Danny's vandalism has no follow-up once he starts spending lunch hours in the library. The nasty cleaning women whose daughter spreads terrible rumours about Pam doesn't return to the text, and Hugh's brother Martin and his commune-living hippie friends seem to arrive only to provide Sixties colour. We also never learn why the neighbour, Carol, takes such an interest in Pam's recovery. Similarly, readers may observe many broken, forgotten, or missing objects — such as Pop's World War One medals, the family television, Pam's jigsaw puzzle, and the model plane — being raised but not resolved: an invitation to explicate the text, or just stray details? Then again, in a book whose major theme is that lives are full of secrets, perhaps readers can use these loose threads to extend the narrative in their own imaginations.The novel does have some intriguing elements. The friendship between Pam and Billie is initially unlikely but eventually feels settled enough to be real. The effect men's violence has on men, as well as on their sisters and daughters, is considered. And women's hair — Pam's hair in particular — becomes a potent, although somewhat problematic, symbol of female self-determination. On balance, though, the novel's pacing is uneven, and the narrative concentration is by turns suffocatingly focussed then too scattered to draw together the numerous subplot matters and story details. Readers may also find the sudden ending too pat: more like a children's novel than a contemporary YA novel. Still, Citra develops sufficient complexity that close readers are likely to want to discuss the book after reading it, and the setting will allow readers to imagine this violence at a comfortable, yet still identifiable, distance.I found this novel an imperfect but still worthwhile reading experience.