Clare SambrookCritiques

I can't say I was very impressed with this one. I just couldn't connect that well with it. It started out amazingly, and some parts were intense and tear-jerking, but a lot of it was nonsense. It's told through the eyes of a young boy named Harry, whose younger brother goes missing. It was a moving story, but it wasn't told very well. I didn't know what was happening at parts- there was so many characters, and we're never told who half of them actually were. I liked the story, and I liked Harry, but there was no structure in the book whatsoever.

I really liked this, though it's really quite disturbing. The background of the story is that a child goes missing, but the story is told from the point of view of a nine year old boy. Reading it while the Madeleine McCann case was in the news (a coincidence that I only realised after I started reading it btw - I've had it out of the library for a while and if I'd thought a bit rather than just picking up the next book in the pile I might not have read it) made it seem a bit odd, and kind of unrealistic too. But you have to remember that a nine year old narrator isn't omniscient.

I read 'Hide and Seek' after meeting Clare Sambrook at a Society of Authors talk. I was engaged by the book and its central character Harry Pickles, through whom the story is told. As a writer who has tried to capture the voice of a nine-year-old child to tell a coherent story, I know just how difficult it is. I don't think I always managed it in my short stories, and I don't think Clare does entirely either, but she gets very close - the misses are not so distracting as to break off the engagement. I would recommend the book, but only for readers who are not looking for happy ever after.

I have read some really good books lately, and this one was no exception. It was heartbreakingly sad but in turns was also funny and warm. The story is about a 9 1/2 year old boy (Harry) who's brother (Daniel) goes missing, and it is told through the innocent eyes of Harry. It made me laugh and it made me cry. Absolutely brilliant writing, and highly recommended.

This started out really well, but after Harry's brother had dissapeared the story went from bad to worse for me. I don't want to give too much away here but the events as they unfolded, especially where Mo, the mother weas concerned, were not very original.
Having said that, the purpose of the story was to let us share in the experiences of a child who lives through the loss of a brother, but even though I tried I did not care much for Harry or his parents. For me, the characters just never came to life in a way that I started caring about them. Which was a real shame and maybe partly my fault, but I would not recommend this book to others.

This was a hard book to read. It was about a family dealing with disappearance of 4 year old Daniel from a school field trip to Legoland. The author knows full well how the news of the disappearance will affect the reader and teases out the full drama by first having another child turn up lost. Harry (the 9 year old narrator) is Daniel's older brother and you can feel the hot dread as he scans the bus looking for his little brother. When he finds him and cradles him, you fully realize the horror of possibly losing this child. They find the first kid and the bus stops for a bathroom break. It is here, that Daniel is lost.

The rest of the book is about how Harry and the rest of his family cope with the nightmare. His mother becomes untethered to sanity and his father moves out. Harry also becomes unhinged but seems to straighten somewhat. They simply have to face life knowing that this terrible thing will never ever go away. Daniel is never found and the book lets off at the end with this terrible knowledge.

Harry Pickles is 9 and has a great life. He is popular, smart, a leader, has a great mom and dad (Mo and Pa) and a precocious little brother Dan. Then there is the school trip where Dan is abducted. The story is about guilt and grief and a family slowly disintegrating and then managing to fight their way back. Some interesting dream sequences where Harry dreams that he is with Dan and his abductor. Was Harry really "seeing" what happened to Dan or just dreaming about what he had overheard others say they thought had happened to Dan? Excellent book, hard to put down.

I thought this was a terrific book. It is written from a child's point of view, and has received many comparisons with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. However, while I found The Curious Incident over-rated and irritating, I thought this was really well written.

The narrator is 9 year old Harry Pickles, who talks about the summer that his nearly 5 year old brother Daniel went missing. Harry describes the effect that the loss had on his parents, himself, and others around him, showing how people find it hard to know what to say, and demonstrating the breakdown of normal family life. It is surprisingly funny at times, but also dreadfully sad. I cannot begin to imagine the pain that any family in this situation must go through, but I was moved to tears reading this.

Incredibly well written, moving and touching. A must-read.

A fabulous book. Engrossing from start to finish! This could have potentially failed as a first novel but it was handled sensitively and with consideration. Telling it from the point of view of the older brother provides a most unsual perspective.

There are areas of adult life that as adults we can appreciate and understand, such as at one point when the issue of parenthood comes up, but seeing it from a nine year olds eyes is informative and interesting.

Personally, I've never been involved in a situation like this so wouldn't have a point of reference to even discuss it. Clare Sambrook has possibly brought a previously taboo subject kicking and screaming into what I felt was reliable fiction! I am so pleased I read this book - I finished it in two days!

Well worth a read, very enjoyable from the beginning to end.

Written from the perspective of a nine year old boy, this is about a family who experience the worst thing possible and have to learn how to live again, despite not knowing what actually happened. Not the easiest book to read - I spent the first half feeling dread, and the second half just depressed.

Liked the narrator's voice for the first few chapters, but lost interest in the book as the story continued - it lacked direction. Skimmed the final third of the book.

I found this very depressing, but, given that it is about a boy whose little brother goes missing, that is to be expected.