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Introduction:
Book Name: When You Were Older
Author Name: Catherine Ryan Hyde
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
About The Author :
Catherine Ryan Hyde is an American novelist and short story writer. Catherine Ryan Hyde is the author of 44 published books and few are yet to be released. Her newer releases are Dreaming of Flight, Boy Underground, Seven Perfect Things, Stay and many others
Plot:
Russell Ammiano works on the World Trade Centre's 104th floor. The phone rings when Rusty is hurrying to work on September 11, 2001. Rusty's mother died after a stroke, leaving him and his brain-damaged older brother Ben alone. This information also saves Rusty's life. He's still at home when two planes crash into the World Trade Centre, killing all but one of his friends and colleagues. Rusty's life in New York comes crashing down around him in a single day.
Rusty returns to his small town and the brother he was delighted to leave behind. Ben has remained unchanged, but the town has. Tensions are high in the aftermath of the terrorist assault, and Rusty is struggling to put the past behind him and care for his aggravating brother. He seeks solace in the early morning hours, having coffee with the lovely Egyptian-American Anat in her father's bakery.
Rusty is starting to reclaim his life...until one terrible night threatens to take it all away again.
Personal Views:
When You Were Older is also written in an intriguing manner. The first few chapters are set in the days following 9/11, however, they move backwards in time beginning on September 15th. This allows the reader to piece together the plot in an intriguing manner.
The book's middle section jumps ahead nearly twenty years, revealing glimpses of Ben and Russell's youth. This is fascinating as one learns about the events that lead to Ben, a typical bossy older brother, becoming crippled and having to live with the mind of a child for the rest of his life.
Catherine Ryan Hyde, in my opinion, really successfully shows the discomfort and mistrust that was prevalent in multicultural America at the time. This made for a sometimes frightening read, but it was also captivating.
I won't tell much more about the plot other than it's fantastic and kept my attention throughout. When You Were Older is a beautifully written book in Catherine Ryan Hyde's soft manner, in my opinion. She is a fantastic storyteller who builds characters that you care about. There were times when she actually astonished me with the story's course and other times when she had me in tears.
Favourite Lines:
“There’s no beginning, middle and end to that experience. The split second it happens, it’s happened. In its entirety. The only time that really elapses is the time it takes you to catch up. To absorb what just happened to you. And nobody ever thinks it’s going to unhappen. Do they?”
“Life just rolls on, adjusting to whatever was subtracted.”
“People can do all manner of things if it’s important enough. If a mother can lift a car off her son, maybe she can die at just the right time to save him.”
“She placed the judgement of her humans ahead of her own, as a matter of courtesy and pride, even if she was always right and we were always wrong. Good dogs are like that.”
“Sometimes you have to close yourself up. Shut the portals into the places inside you that still know how to feel. Because there’s just nothing you can do.”
“I don’t know if war is always pointless,” she said. “I know it’s always tragic.”
Get the Book: From Amazon
Edited By: Nidhi Jha
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