Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Feb 2019
368 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A compelling, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and timely story that asks: how far would you go for family?
As the person who cares for his terminally-ill mother, Bobby Seed has a lot on his plate. Add to that a responsibility to watch over his little brother (with his endless question about why their mother is in so much pain), keeping up at school, and navigating a relationship with a girl friend who wants to be a girlfriend, and he's barely keeping his head above the water. Something's got to give.
But then Bobby's mother makes a request, one that seems impossible. If he agrees, he won't just be soothing her pain. He'll be helping her end it - and end everything. Angry, stirring, and tender, this bold novel tells a story of choice and compassion, exploring the lengths to which we'll go for the people we love.
"Starred Review. Bobby's first-person narration is a masterful and very realistic blend of sarcasm, shame, hopefulness, earnestness, and anger... . Uncompromising, unflinching, and unsentimental." - Kirkus
"The relationships depicted, especially between Bobby and his mother, are raw and real, and readers will be rooting for this family ... A heavy, well-written examination of ethics and family bonds." - Booklist
"This illuminating, thought-provoking novel offers a compassionate exploration of the weighty responsibilities that one teenage caregiver faces." - Publishers Weekly
"While the story is important, the writing style and poor pacing fail to pull teens into Bobby's narrative...An additional purchase." - School Library Journal
This information about The Weight of a Thousand Feathers was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Brian Conaghan is the author of When Mr. Dog Bites and The Bombs That Brought Us Together, and the co-author of We Come Apart. He lives and works as a teacher in Dublin and has a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Throughout the years, Brian has made a living as a painter and decorator, bartender, teacher, and now writer.
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