Oblivion - Hardcover

Dawn, Sasha

3.82

1,403 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1606844768 ISBN 13: 9781606844762

Publisher: EgmontUSA, 2014

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One year ago, Callie was found in an abandoned apartment, scrawling words on the wall: "I KILLED HIM. His blood is on my hands. His heart is in my soul. I KILLED HIM."

But she remembers nothing of that night or of the previous thirty-six hours. All she knows is that her father, the reverend at the Church of the Holy Promise, is missing, as is Hannah, a young girl from the parish. Their disappearances have to be connected and Callie knows that her father was not a righteous man. Since that fateful night, she's been plagued by graphomania―an unending and debilitating compulsion to write. The words that flow from Callie's mind and through her pen don't seem to make sense―until now.

As the anniversary of Hannah's vanishing approaches, more words and memories bubble to the surface and a new guy in school might be the key to Callie putting together the puzzle. But digging up the secrets she's buried for so long might be her biggest mistake.

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About the Author:

Sasha Dawn teaches writing at community colleges and offers pro bono writing workshops to local schools. She lives in her native northern Illinois, where she collects tap shoes, fabric swatches, and tales of survival, and she harbors a crush on Thomas Jefferson. Her debut novel, Oblivion, was an Illinois Reads selection and one of the New York Public Library's best books for teens.

Review:

3Q 2P S

"Calliope 'Callie' Knowles was missing for over thirty-six hours before she was found in the apartment over the bar with the words, 'I killed him' written on her body and the walls with a red felt-tip pen. Her father, Reverend Palmer Prescott, is missing along with a parishioner from his church, twelve-year-old, Hannah Rynes. The trauma has triggered in Callie an obsessive compulsion to write known as graphomania. Her mother stabbed her father before he went missing and she is currently in a mental hospital where he had her placed. After Callie was found in the apartment, she spent time in 'County' where she met a boy, Elijah, with whom she formed a bond and a sexual relationship. Since she was released from County, Callie lives with a foster family and she considers their daughter to be her sister. Lindsey is interested in a boy at school, John, who stares at Callie one day in choir class when she slips a note from Lindsey to him. This begins a complicated relationship, just one of many in Callie's life.

This is a gripping, psychologically intense mystery, but there are times when the story lags. There are sexual relationships and the missing Reverend believes that honoring God is shown to him through sex and torture. This title would be an interesting purchase since the unique subject of graphomania is described so vividly, and this type of resilient fiction may help someone struggling with the compulsion." ―VOYA

(Journal)

"'I killed him, I killed him, I killed him, I killed him.' A year ago Calliope Knowles was found writing these words over and over on the wall of a bathroom in an abandoned apartment-she'd been there for a day and a half. Her abusive preacher father had disappeared along with a little girl from the community. Calliope has no memory of what happened that day, but she believes that she killed her dad. The only clues to the truth are in her sudden onset of graphomania: compulsive-seemingly nonsensical-writing. The more she writes, the more she seems to remember about the night her father and Hannah vanished. But how accurate are her memories? And what does she risk by seeking out the truth? Though the writing is a little self-conscious and flowery, it works. The story is told in first person, and the protagonist is a poet afflicted with an obsessive need to write. Nearly every time Calliope has a graphomania fit, 'a teardrop splats' on the page, or 'tears build' in her eyes, or she's 'sobbing,' or some other reference to crying. Despite this flaw, the mystery in the story is compelling, and the final revelatory scene is horrifying. John, Calliope's main love interest, is a little too perfect, and her foster sister, Lindsey, is too much of a hateful queen bee, but otherwise the characterization rings true. An exciting page-turner." ―School Library Journal

(Journal)

"Callie, 16, suffers from graphomania, a debilitating mental disorder characterized by an irresistible urge to write, in this psychological thriller.
Callie's chaotic writing comes across as poetic, but her therapist and the local police believe she's trying to remember a traumatic event that occurred one year ago: Her father, fire-breathing pastor of a fundamentalist church, may have kidnapped a young girl. No one knows if either is dead or alive, but whatever Callie experienced was too disturbing to remember. Now living with a wealthy foster family, Callie copes with a newly strained relationship with her foster sister, who loves John―who finds himself far more attracted to Callie. Meanwhile, Callie meets Elijah for sex in a room above the old cafe where her mentally ill mother used to read tarot cards. As events trigger emerging memories for Callie, she begins to believe she can eventually solve the case. When she succeeds, however, far more trauma comes to light. Dawn weaves Callie's memories and her uncontrolled writing into a tapestry that slowly begins to form answers and uncovers a crime more monstrous than Callie could have foreseen or remembered. The story works on two levels: as a psychological mystery and as a story of Callie's rocky relationships with her sister and boyfriends, always grounding her difficulties in reality.
Thoroughly compelling." ―Kirkus Reviews

(Journal)

"Callie can't remember what happened the night when her reverend father and Hannah, a girl from the church, disappeared. Officers found her in a deserted apartment, covered in mud and the words I KILLED HIM. Now, she's tormented with the urge to write constantly. As the anniversary of the disappearance draws closer, Callie's writing gets worse, and new secrets come to light. This gripping mystery excels in the portrayal of teenagers'onflicted inner lives. The handling of drugs, alcohol, sex and relationships is realistic and likely to please parents and educators. All in all, this is an excellent choice for a reader seeking a plot-driven mystery with complex characters. Recommended." ―Library Media Connection

(Journal)

"Readers will feel unmoored until the last few pages of Oblivion, and that's all right; so does the story's narrator, Callie. Almost a year earlier, Callie was found in a deserted room scribbling 'I killed him,' more than a thousand times on a wall. At the same time, she developed graphomania and became someone who is impelled―to the point of terror, to the point of exhaustion―to write down the words screaming in her head. The police don't believe that Callie killed either her father, Pastor Palmer, or the 12-year-old who disappeared that day. But her journals of repetitive poetic ramblings obscure rather than illuminate the case. Literally raised in a church, Callie doesn't do normal. Her mother is in a mental institution after stabbing Palmer, whose persona alternates between man of God and sexual predator. Her new foster family has given her an upgraded life for which she's unprepared. When she finds herself clinging to her 'sister's' boyfriend, John, who's somehow related to the mystery, her world is jolted again. The book's intensity can be overwhelming. Callie's uncontrollable need to write―and the anxiety she feels when she can't―is communicated as if by osmosis. Though readers may wonder why foster parents so uninvolved would take Callie in or how she maintains good grades, these questions fade in the face of the incessant demands that the graphomania makes on both the characters and those turning the pages." ―starred, Booklist

(Journal)

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