Words and Their Meanings

By Kate Bassett

Anna O’Mally is a born writer—gifted, perceptive, headed for the stars. Or she was, until the tragic death of her uncle Joe. He was barely older than Anna herself, and she worshipped the ground he walked on. Best of all, Anna got to live in the glow of knowing that she was the most important person in his world, too.

Anna has promised everyone—her shrink, her parents, her best friend—that Joe’s one-year “deadaversary” will be the end of her period of mourning. But when a strange note suggests that her saintly uncle had deep secrets, Anna stumbles into a chain of events that changes everything she thought she knew about the past, the possibilities of love . . . and origami.

Praise:

2015 IPPY Gold medal winner in Young Adult Ficiton

2014 ForeWord IndieFab Honorable Mention for Young Adult Fiction

“Bassett’s debut novel scores a hat-trick of literary merit in a strongly crafted and complex plot, deeply drawn characters with palpable grief, and beautifully woven and rich prose.”
—SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL (starred review)

“A heartbreaking and fantastic debut.”—VOYA 

“With a compelling voice and evocative prose, Kate Bassett establishes herself as an author to watch.”—Sara Zarr, author of The Lucy Variations and National Book Award winning Story of a Girl

"A contemplative look at redemption and relationships for readers with more literary tastes."
—KIRKUS REVIEWS

"The right readers will turn themselves inside out following Anna's raw grief."—BOOKLIST

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
• Release date: Sep 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9780738741048

Kate Bassett

Kate Bassett (Harbor Springs, MI) is the Michigan Press Association award-winning editor of her small town's paper, Harbor Light News, and a contributing writer for the magazine Traverse. She has covered Mount Everest climbers, New York Times bestselling authors, and pet pig obituaries with the same philosophy for eleven years: voice matters.

Reviews for Words and Their Meanings

[literaryperuser · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kate Bassett creates elegant prose and a heart-wrenching story of loss and the will to move on with life after tragedy. Be prepared for plenty of sniffles and some nose-blowing. A great story that was, unfortunately, a little too easy to put down.

[ewyatt_16 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Anna has become a shell of herself due to her grief over losing her Uncle Joe. Raised as siblings, she can no longer write and barely can function. When she finds a secret note that Joe wrote and begins to unravel hidden truths, Anna has to find a way out of her grief and back to her life.

[eeminxs · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This hit me right in the heart from the beginning and dragged me along. There were so many twists and emotional moments, I felt breathless at the end. This author took a common situation we all will likely face at some time in our lives...the death of a loved one...and showed how this girl learned to copewith the devastating loss. The author paints such a vivid picture with the words, you feel as though you are part of the book.

[edgoldberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is June and the one year deadaversary of Anna’s bruncle Joe. Joe was really her uncle, her dad’s brother, but since he was only a few years older than Anna, he was more like a brother. He was living in their house and her father acted more like a father to Joe than a brother. Anna worshipped Joe. He was her best friend and they told each other everything. Anna blames herself for Joe’s death, which also caused her parents to split up and get divorced. She’s got a lot on her mind. Her Gramps, her maternal grandfather, seems to be the one holding the family together.Since Joe’s death, Anna’s been practicing ‘coffin yoga’ where she lies on her bed pretending she was dead. She also writes lines from Patti Smith songs on her arm every day. Her seven year old sister Bea acts out differently…she hides in places in which she can’t be found, except Anna can find her.Anna’s behavior is causing concern for her parents. They force her to ‘act normal’ for the summer and get a summer job or they will send her to a special school that deals with her abnormal behavior. Her best friend Natalie gets her a job waitressing where she meets Mateo and soon a relationship blossoms.Bassett’s debut novel, Words and Their Meanings, takes us through the summer. Of course this is a summer of discovery. Anna discovers that Joe wasn’t as great as she perceived him to be. She discovered that her father, who left the family after Joe’s death, wasn’t as bad as she perceived him to be. She discovered that a flourishing romance can break her out of her guilt ridden emotions and show that life is worth living, that the future holds promise.Words and Their Meanings is a combination of the obvious and the not so obvious. Unfortunately, for me anyway, seven year old Bea was a much more entertaining character than Anna, and while never having experienced the kind of loss Anaa experienced, to me her actions didn’t ring true. Bea, on the other hand, acted like a seven year old, at times hiding in the oddest places and at other times asking the questions a seven year old would ask, not the great philosophical questions but the practical questions like where will Joe go after his death (meaning geographically, not spiritually)?Some twists and turns at the end were unnecessary for the story, in my mind.So, overall, while I enjoyed Words and Their Meanings, it started out with more promise than it ended up with.