If You Read This

Brie’s joyous and exuberant mother died three years ago and since then her life with her father and grandmother has lost its centre and its excitement. She wants to please her father with her successes at school, both in class and on the sports field, but he seems to spend more and more time at work and barely sees her or registers her achievements. It is almost as if she has lost not just her mother, but him, too 

To her sorrow and anger he is absent from her twelfth birthday party, where she has a surprise present-three letters from her mother, written in the last stages of her illness, promising a final adventure which she has planned. Her disappointment at what seems like her father’s indifference to her resolves itself into a determination to pursue the quest with the help of her remaining family and her two best friends, Femi and Smiley, despite his disapproval.

The story is set in Jamaica and there is a good deal of local colour, use of patois and references to food specialities, which give the story authenticity. The quest leads her to her beloved grandfather Brim’s house, an eccentric and captivating place which she has always felt to be special. It has lost its centre, however, as her grandfather is now living in a care home as a result of his encroaching dementia. The home is painted rather clumsily by Getten as a dark prison from which Brim must be-and is-liberated, with no sense of the necessary care he receives there.

Brie solves the mystery in the letters in a surprisingly short time, since her mother explained that it took her many years to unravel the secret. The narrative seems rushed towards the end, not always giving characters like Smiley and Femi chance to develop. Readers will be drawn into the many interesting facets of the story but need to be rewarded with  nuanced personalities who do more than facilitate plot movement.

That said, the book has a good deal to offer on other fronts, not least Brie’s reconciliation with her father and the sensitive handling of both of them trying to make sense of grief in their own very individual ways. There is much to move readers and to provide a way through the incomprehension of loss.