Nina Killham

I had high hopes for this book but was disappointed to find that it was in the end a pretty standard story about a 14 year old boy dealing with his parents' separation with a fairly superficial attachment to a Christian church. It's very clear that this boy is less moved by Jesus and God than he is by the "normalcy" of his Christian friend's family where the parents' marriage is intact and generally pissing off his atheist mother. I was especially disappointed that the author didn't provide Nic with any kind of reasonable adult model to help him through this time. The Christians were all stereotypes, with the character of Dele, a Nigerian pastor, breaking out of the mold only slightly. The non-Christians didn't fare too much better with virtually all of them--including his parents--too absorbed in their own lives to pay adequate attention to Nic.… (mehr)

I had high hopes for this book but was disappointed to find that it was in the end a pretty standard story about a 14 year old boy dealing with his parents' separation with a fairly superficial attachment to a Christian church. It's very clear that this boy is less moved by Jesus and God than he is by the "normalcy" of his Christian friend's family where the parents' marriage is intact and generally pissing off his atheist mother. I was especially disappointed that the author didn't provide Nic with any kind of reasonable adult model to help him through this time. The Christians were all stereotypes, with the character of Dele, a Nigerian pastor, breaking out of the mold only slightly. The non-Christians didn't fare too much better with virtually all of them--including his parents--too absorbed in their own lives to pay adequate attention to Nic.… (mehr)

I had high hopes for this book but was disappointed to find that it was in the end a pretty standard story about a 14 year old boy dealing with his parents' separation with a fairly superficial attachment to a Christian church. It's very clear that this boy is less moved by Jesus and God than he is by the "normalcy" of his Christian friend's family where the parents' marriage is intact and generally pissing off his atheist mother. I was especially disappointed that the author didn't provide Nic with any kind of reasonable adult model to help him through this time. The Christians were all stereotypes, with the character of Dele, a Nigerian pastor, breaking out of the mold only slightly. The non-Christians didn't fare too much better with virtually all of them--including his parents--too absorbed in their own lives to pay adequate attention to Nic.… (mehr)

This may have been one of the last book that my mother was reading before she passed away there was a marker in it on page 98. I felt obligated to finish reading it. It was a lovely story of a genius boy coming of age with a good ending about his mother not dying from a brain cancer. Nic the son begins to reteach his atrophysicist mother all the things she lost from surgeries including her job because he was taught these things while growing up and so he returns tothe fundamentals to help her gain back what she has lost. Nic also goes through some tough times and finds religion but his mother being a scientist does not believe and is an athiest, this concept of religion makes it very strained in their relationship before she finds out about the cancer....… (mehr)