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The First Day of Spring: Discover the year’s most page-turning thriller

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When your book begins with this sentence, you know you have a dark journey ahead of you. After you have completed your double-take at that unexpected start, you try to get a clearer idea of the diabolical person giving you this first-person insight. The killer murdered the child willingly. Then walked out, very relaxed, in search of her friend, then went to the local park and played with her until the murder was discovered. She calmly joined the crowd and watched the distraught mother sobbing over her dead child. At no point during this book did I feel anything but pity for Chrissie and my heart broke following her journey which was so sad and unnecessary. Chrissie’s mother was as much as victim as Chrissie – a women who didn’t know how to be a mother, didn’t want to be a mother and didn’t have any help or support. Chrissie was left to fend for herself, she was a victim of neglect and was starved not just of food but of love. She overheard being described as a “bad seed” and from that moment on she accepted she was bad and it was only whilst performing bad acts that she felt alive and “seen” by everyone. I wasn’t able to put this book down, it burrowed deep under my skin, leaving me breathless and sad. I know this is a book of fiction, but Chrissie/Julia became real to me. The murder of the innocent little 2 year old was an act of absolute evil. Chrissie’s thoughts and behaviour were painful to read as a mother and as a human being. This is a debut like no other in this subject matter that’s thrown me in circles and bashed me head first into a wall. My thoughts were all over the place. Ahhh....The First Day of Spring. A lovely cover with pretty blue flowers. You might think this book is going to be a lighthearted read but you'd be wrong. Very wrong.

The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker | Waterstones

On the inside, the shop wasn’t a shop at all. It was a waiting room, the same as the waiting rooms at the doctor’s and the dentist’s. I had seen those waiting rooms in the videos they showed us at school. One of them was called “Going to the Doctor” and the other was called “Going to the Dentist.” Everything in this waiting room was a soft, washed-​out color, and on the walls there were pictures of families with wide white smiles, so I thought perhaps it was a dentist’s, and perhaps Mam had brought me there to get my rotten tooth fixed. She pulled me up to a desk where a woman was talking on a telephone. When the woman saw us she put the phone down and smiled the same smile as the people on the walls, except her teeth were like wonky yellow paving stones crunched up against each other. I didn’t think people with teeth like that should be allowed to work at the dentist’s. I didn’t really think people with teeth like that should be allowed to leave their houses. Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn't get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer.I listened to the Audiobook and I fully recommend you go this route if you enjoy audios. The narrator's tone and inflection and pauses are point on.

The First Day of Spring - Penguin Books Australia The First Day of Spring - Penguin Books Australia

Julia is the other narrator, she is Chrissie now aged 25 living under a different identity having served time in a juvenile home from the age of 9 to 18 and now a mother herself to a 5 year old daughter called Molly. When a phone call from her past threatens everything Julia now has, she has no option but to face up to her horrific past before the authorities take away her daughter. Julie is twenty-eight years old and is a single parent with a young daughter, Molly. She worries about social services taking Molly away, especially when Molly broke her arm in a fall when Julie was beside her. Julie has a very nervous and uncertain outlook, fearful of being a parent and a neighbour. The reason for the apprehension and the social services monitoring of her child is unsurprising when you learn Julie is Chrissie twenty years later and after being released from Juvenile Detention. This second timeline works well for reflection, trying to establish a new life and new norm, and if you weren’t provided with the connection, you would believe these to be two very different people. My only issue with this story is the disbelief that the complete transformation of a psychopath can occur, when the tendencies from Chrissie feel part of her DNA. No they won’t,” she said. She tried to pat my shoulder but I jerked away, so she patted the space where I wasn’t. “No more kids are going to get hurt. I promise.” However, the more I read, the more devastating I realized things were in both the past and present. This is a dark and uncomfortable book that takes a raw look at child neglect, emotional and physical abuse, trauma, and facing the consequences.Overall, an incredible book which is extremely moving and which handles a disturbing theme with delicacy and thoughtfulness. Told in two time frames, past and present, this book begs the questions of overcoming, success in a future life, forgiveness of self and if one can ever have a positive future. A hard story to read but a story that makes one think and one that needs to be read with understanding. Once again we have my favourite style multi-POV and multi-timelines. We are treated to the world via Chrissie’s eyes at age 8 and also 20 years later (name now Julia). The sections that are written as child Chrissie you would think are lifted exactly out of a transcript of a child’s mind. At first you could be mistaken for thinking that Chrissie truly believes she is the best, with no worries, and no fear… but as you read further to see the underbelly of her life. Twenty years later Chrissie is a single mum hiding under a changed name since her incarceration. She wants her daughter to have the life she never did (in more ways than one). People are always hunting Chrissie and she fears one thing more than losing her life again and that is losing her daughter. Fifteen years later, Julia is trying to mother her five-year-old daughter, Molly. She is always worried - about affording food and school shoes, about what the other mothers think of her. Most of all she worries that the social services are about to take Molly away.

The First Day of Spring - The Gilmore Guide to Books The First Day of Spring - The Gilmore Guide to Books

Told with compassion and sensitivity, this is a very dark psychological drama and an amazing debut novel. The author writes the voice and thoughts of an eight year old child so convincingly that she feels like a real child, one you want to take away from her awful home before it’s too late (although of course it already is). Julia is also a convincing character, so conflicted by her past, yet to come to terms with what she did and learn to forgive herself before she can make a fresh start with her child. Overall this is a deeply thoughtful and moving novel that I suspect I will think about for some time. At the same time, you also have to reconcile yourself to the fact that this same child has grown up to be Julia. And you wonder, should a child murderer be allowed to have a child? For how long should a crime be punished? What would you do if your child was murdered and you hear about the killer free and with a child after a few years? Don’t killers deserve a second chance? Do they? Too many questions, no simple answers.WOW – this is a book that whatever I write here will NOT do the book, the story, the characters or the author any justice because I don’t think I can put my thoughts down in a way that expresses my feelings coherently, but I will try because this book is simply INCREDIBLE. This novel is about childhood neglect and the ramifications. A dark and totally heartbreaking story 💔 The story takes us from Chrissie's new adult identity of Julie with flashes of the past as Chrissie. Julie, 25, now has a child, five-year-old Molly, and is very afraid to lose her. We see the person she used to be and what she has become. Feelings are conflicted from poor Chrissie to what a shitty little child you are, Chrissie. Should child murderers be incarcerated like adults or be viewed as children that made mistakes and deserve a second chance? I have mixed feelings because I wasn’t crazy about her writing style and I did not find it that gripping, but I did enjoy the concept and the structure, although I must confess that I almost lost interest after 30%. It was too slow. What can I say that hasn't already been said? This is a dark and gripping novel beautifully written in past and present form as Chrissie and Julia.

The First Day of Spring : Book summary and reviews of The The First Day of Spring : Book summary and reviews of The

Intense, brutal--The First Day of Spring is a gorgeously written punch of a novel, the suffering and brutality of a child lost and abused lashing out and inwards. I cried so hard reading about Chrissie's life before and for the name she wears like a ragged cloak as she lives with her daughter, Molly, after. So that was all it took,' I thought. 'That was all it took for me to feel like I had all the power in the world. One morning, one moment, one yellow-haired boy. It wasn't so much after all.' Thank you to Riverhead Books for sending me a finished copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Now available. Wow! How on earth can I do justice to this excellent novel? I honestly don’t know that I can, but here goes anyway. I don’t know what’s more disturbing: a child so off kilter she becomes a murderer; or a mum who is such a bitch you don’t need to wonder why the kid is so messed up.Meet Chrissie, she is 8 years old and has a secret, she has just killed a little boy. The feeling made her belly fizz like soda pop. Chrissie is the best at almost everything, wall walking, getting free candy, handstands and now she’s got all the power. It is difficult not to feel sorry for Chrissie, although I absolutely do not condone the actions she took as a child. To say the mixed feelings were there throughout is an understatement. There’s something about eight-year-old Chrissie that makes adults wary. Her teacher finds her a handful – argumentative, cheeky, disruptive, and disobedient, and her friend’s mammy even calls her a ‘bad seed’ to her face. Not that Chrissie cares, because her teacher and the mammies are mean and stupid. She firmly believes she is superior to everyone else.

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