Pucker

Imagine having the opportunity to go to a place where your terribly scared face would be magically healed. You have to find something in this world that might help save your mother. But if you come back to Earth, your scars would return. What would you do? This is the dilemna Thomas Quicksilver, "Pucker", is faced with. Thomas has always been an outsider. He has kept the secrets of his crazy mother, his origins, and the hideous scars on his face a secret. But his mother asks him to go back to Isaura, an alternate world, where both he and his mother were exiled nine years earlier. Ripped of her Seerskin, which helps her predict the future, she is flooded with predictions. So many that without her Seerskin, she'll go mad. Thomas goes back with a group of others, who have a variety of problems and is 'changed.' For the first time he receives positive attention to his physical appearance, something he's craved since his accident. While in Isaura, he learns what it is to be desirable and falls in love for the first time. But the clock is ticking. He only has a few days to find his mother's Seerskin or she'll die. I loved this book! Melanie Gideon does an excellent job of getting inside the head of a teen boy and the anguish he goes through with his scars. The reader will feel Thomas's pain as others call him Pucker when describing his scars. Also you'll feel the joy of his first kiss. Something he'd always fantasized about but never thought would happen to someone like him. The only part I didn't like about this book is that it ended. I'm hoping for a sequel, which the book hints at.

Thomas Quicksilver came to Earth from an alternate world called Isaura. In Isaura, there are people called Seers who can predict the future. The Seers help with planning every aspect of life in Isaura, from the daily menu to the weather. Thomas' mother and father were Seers, until one horrible day which left Thomas' father dead and his mother stripped of her Seerskin, the outer layer of skin that allowed her to prophecy. Thomas himself was so badly burned in a fire that the scars on his face will never heal. Thomas' mother escaped with him to Earth, where she tried to make a new life for them. But life is hard for Thomas, whose peers call him "Pucker" because of the disfiguring scars he bears. And on top of everything, Thomas' mother is dying. The only way to save her is for Thomas to return to Isaura and retrieve her seerskin. To return to Isaura, Thomas must become one of the Changed: humans with disabilities of various types who are taken to Isaura and cured of their disabilities. In return, they agree to serve the Isaurans for the rest of their life. But Thomas doesn't anticipate how being Changed will affect him. Now, he is not only unscarred, but beautiful: girls compete for his attention. If he returns to Earth, he will have to give all this up; his scars will return and all will be as it was before. But if he doesn't return to Earth with his mother's skin, she will die. While Thomas hides his identity and searches for his mother's seerskin, he wrestles with his anger and bitterness and tries to come to terms with the decision he must make. Pucker is the kind of book that stays with you long after you finish it. The story is exciting and moving, and the fantasy world and the characters, both human and Isauran, are well developed. I felt a lot of emphathy for Thomas. He has so much pain. Even when he acted despicably, I still felt for him and wanted him to learn to come to terms with his past and his present. Pucker surprised me, not once, but multiple times.

His mother is dying; his father is dead. His face was disfigured in a fire. Not much else can go wrong for Thomas Quicksilver a.k.a. Pucker. Alas, the worst is yet to come. His mother tells him that the only way he can save her is to return to Isaura, the world they were banished from on the day of the fire and his father's death. When he returns to the world of his birth, his scars are removed, and he becomes the handsome boy he would have been if the fire hadn't occurred. He falls in love. Things are definitely looking up. Unfortunately, his mother will die without her seer skin, a special second skin that many people in Isaura develop when they reach their teens that allows them to see into the future, and he still has to recover it before time runs out. If Thomas is to save his mother, he must find what he came for and return to her on Earth, losing his new face and breaking his heart in the process. What will he decide? Pucker is the story of a boy who is judged by his blemished cover. In this brilliantly written novel, readers will discover the pain that people go through when they are ridiculed because of their appearance, and the joy they feel when they finally realize that somebody really does care about them. Melanie Gideon has created a novel that will teach readers to look beyond the skin to the heart beneath. Pucker's story is truly one that teens and adults can learn from and enjoy. Reviewed by a student for Flamingnet Book Reviews www.flamingnet.com Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations

Moving, imaginative, and a page turner, this book embodies what YA fantasy novels should be about! I check the credentials before I buy (who can afford to spend money on a bad book??!!), and found out this one's just been nominated by the American Library Association to be the best YA book of this year, which it deserves to win. Enough said.

PUCKER is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. And since I've read and reviewed over 250 books since August 2005 alone, I have a lot to compare it to! The book is probably best described as a contemporary fantasy, but it's so much more than that. The story centers around Thomas Quicksilver, who at seventeen has spent most of his life with only his mother and a few close friends as acquaintances. Burned on the face as a young child, he's known as "Pucker" to his cruel classmates, and his only living relative is his mother, a woman who tells the future for her clients from her bed, where she spends all of her time. But what none of those clients, or his best friend, Patrick, knows, is that Thomas Quicksilver has more in his past than the trauma of a childhood accident. For Thomas and his mother, Serena, were once Isaurians. They lived in a world where technological advances were not pursued, where every step of a person's life was foretold by the Seers. Not just cataclysmic events such as earthquakes or blizzards, but daily ones such as avoiding a street with a large pothole that could twist an ankle or what a family would have for dinner the following week. For Serena and her husband, William, the calm, patented life of Isaura wasn't enough--they longed for their only child, Thomas, to have a normal life, one filled with love, desire, regret, and the unknown. In return for their wayward thinking, Serena and William were stripped of their Seerskins, the outer layer of skin that allowed them to foretell the future. As William lay dead on the kitchen floor, Serena barely conscious, young Thomas was overwhelmed with grief--and accidentally allowed a fire to rage in their home, burning his face. Exiled to Earth for their sins, Serena and Thomas began a new life, free from the safety and monotony of Isaura. But Serena, minus her Seerskin, discovers that she can still tell the future on Earth--and the gift, or curse, is much stronger than it ever was in Isaura. Her only hope to save her life, and her sanity, is for Thomas to return to Isaura for her Seerskin, which she hopes will dampen the ability to foretell the future on Earth. For Thomas, this means entering his homeland as one of the Changed--humans with lives bad enough to be offered a chance of redemption in the land of Isaura. His only goal is to find his mother's Seerskin and return to Earth before she dies, but he's soon sidetracked by his new, healed face--and by the lovely Phaidra, a rebellious girl who knows there's more to the Changed than the Isaurians are letting on. I know I've made PUCKER sound a lot more complicated than it really is. One of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much is that, although a fantasy, it's easy to follow along and relate to the characters. It is, basically, a story about love, about forgiveness, about identity and the desire to be loved for who and what you are. It is, in a word, simply amazing. Pick up a copy today, and I