Philip Beard

i really enjoyed listening to this book but:
1. it is sad;
2. it is even more sad when you grew up in pittsburgh and know all the places the author is talking about.

i listened to this on a cross-country flight and i was looking out the window and crying a lot of the time thinking about going to kennywood as a child and grocery shopping at the giant eagle.

anyways, i liked the narrator and the style of beard's writing. it's easy to listen to and a super-quick read.(like 5 or so hours on audiobook) i read that this is beard's first book--if he writes more i will definitely read them!

p.s. thanks cassi:-)… (more)

This book is about Tess, a soon-to-be 16 year old girl whose little sister, Zoe is hit by a car and killed on September 11th. Tess writes this book (letter) to Zoe as she deals with her grief over her sisters death. It was a very interesting read – Tess’s voice is told by a male author, and it starts out feeling superficial at first, but Tess’s character feels like any young teen girl you might talk to, today. I enjoyed this book a lot, but I feel like it wrapped up very quickly at the end. I guess that is how grief is. You dance around it, telling all these little stories here and there that lead up to it, and once you confront it, you are able to grown and learn how to live with it. An enjoyable book with a very good voice.… (more)

Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

On September 11th, 2001, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in numerous acts of terrorism against the United States. Even now, five years later, people still ask the question, "Where were you on 9/11?" I remember watching, on that fateful day, news coverage that left me horrified, aghast, and haunted. Where was I on 9/11? At work, on a day that started out like any other and quickly turned into one that no one will ever forget.

If you asked Tess DeNunzio, the fifteen-year-old girl at the center of DEAR ZOE, where she was on 9/11, she'll be quick to tell you that she was at home with her younger half-sister, Zoe, waiting for the school bus like any other day. Except for that one moment, when she let her gaze wander elsewhere, and Zoe ran into the street, into the path of an oncoming car. For Tess and her family, 9/11 is a day they'll never forget.

DEAR ZOE is Tess's letter to Zoe, her way of healing from her sister's death and coming to terms with the changes that have taken place in her extended family. This isn't a story about September 11th, 2001, in the ways that most of us have come to view that day. As Tess puts it, "...just like all the people who go to New York and cry over the rubble. I want to tell them all to go home. I want to tell them to go home and hold their children or their lovers or their parents. I want to tell them that they are using that place as an excuse to be sad and afraid when there will be reason enough for that in their own lives if they just wait."

According to recent facts, nearly 150,000 people die every day. That's about 1.8 people every second. And yet no one seems to remember the other 147,000 people that died on 9/11. That includes myself. Until reading DEAR ZOE, I had never stopped to consider that there were other people around the world who were grieving for lost loved ones who had nothing to do with an act of terror.

Thanks to Mr. Beard, I now have a new way of looking at that day in history. I also have the story of Tess and Zoe, which will stay with me for much longer than it took for me to read the book. Love, loss, regret, and forgiveness mingle within the pages of DEAR ZOE to form a story that, quite possibly, you'll remember even five years later.… (more)