Anything But Ordinary Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Bryce remembers it like it was yesterday. The scent of chlorine. The blinding crack and flash of pain. Blood in the water.When she wakes up in the hospital, all Bryce can think of is her disastrous Olympic diving trial. But everything is different now. Bryce still feels seventeen, so how can her little sister be seventeen, too? Life went on without her while Bryce lay in a coma for five years. Her best friend and boyfriend have just graduated from college. Her parents barely speak. And everything she once dreamed of doing—winning a gold medal, traveling the world, falling in love—seems beyond her reach.But Bryce has changed too, in seemingly impossible ways. She knows things she shouldn’t. Things that happened while she was asleep. Things that haven’t even happened yet. During one luminous summer, as she comes to understand that her dreams have changed forever, Bryce learns to see life for what it truly is: extraordinary.
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion; Reprint edition (October 8, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1423164504
ISBN-13: 978-1423164500
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #2,258,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #69 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Sports > Water Sports #435 in Books > Children's Books > Sports & Outdoors > Water Sports #1575 in Books > Children's Books > Growing Up & Facts of Life > Difficult Discussions > Death & Dying
Age Range: 12 - 18 years
Grade Level: 7 - 12
Thanks to an advance reading copy, I got a chance to check out Anything But Ordinary by Lara Avery a few weeks early. The premise to this YA novel is compelling - seventeen-year-old Bryce wakes up in the hospital after an Olympic diving trial gone wrong, only to discover that she missed the last five years of her life, and she's actually twenty-two. Her best friend Gabby and her boyfriend Greg commiserated together... to the point that they began dating each other, thinking Bryce would never come out of her coma. Bryce still feels seventeen in her head, as if the dive that landed her in the hospital was just yesterday, but in reality, her little sister Sydney is now seventeen, and running around with a partying crowd that likes to drink, dress alternatively, and stay out late. Bryce's parents have become distant from each other, due to the stress of her accident. Her mom and dad have different ideas about how to structure her recovery, and this leads to more bickering.The novel's plot kept me reading, even though some of the dialogue was mildly bland and perhaps not as in depth as it could have been. I was interested to see how Bryce would handle the many difficult situations she had to face. I especially would have liked to see the relationship between Bryce and her sister Sydney fleshed out, because I got the impression we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. A few more flashback scenes of her former life would have helped her loss resonate with readers even more strongly.One problem is that the Olympic trials plot sparked my interest, and yet the Olympics are barely discussed as a goal of Bryce's. After she wakes up, she realizes she will never be able to compete, and the novel doesn't focus on her coming to terms with this, favoring the romantic triangle instead.
The intriguing premise of Lara Avery's Anything But Ordinary is what initially drew me to this book- I mean girl-in-coma-wakes-up-years-later with visions sounds pretty captivating- unfortunately, the book's story execution and character development fell very flat.Seventeen year old Bryce has a terrible accident on the day of her Olympic diving trials and ends up in a coma. Five years later, she miraculously wakes up and seems to recover swiftly. But everything is different- Bryce is now 22, her parents' marriage is breaking, her baby sister is now a rebellious, wayward 17 year old and her BFF and high school boyfriend have moved on. Then Bryce starts to have weird visions, visions of things that happened while she was asleep and visions of things to come. And through it all, Bryce must rediscover who she is and the life she wants to live.Anything But Ordinary starts with a potentially complex and fascinating premise, but the story never lives up to that potential. This book seems to have an identity crisis of sorts; it can't decide if it's a contemporary or a paranormal or a love story. It has elements of all three, and individually these elements can, at times, be compelling and intriguing, but they don't really mesh well together or cohesively. The story just never finds its balance or flow.The narration is anything but smooth and has a disjointed, clunky feel to it. At times I found myself fully engrossed in the story, but then the choppy flow would yank me out of the story. The writing itself is not bad, in fact there are quite a few really beautiful and thought-provoking lines, and the actual story being told is worth telling. However, the total story execution and development falls very short.
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