Dying to Know You

(Paperback)

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From the master storyteller, Aidan Chambers, comes this new thought-provoking novel for teenagers. Karl, aged seventeen, is hopelessly in love. But the object of his affections, Firella, demands proof, and poses him a series of questions regarding his attitude to the many sides of love. But Karl is dyslexic, and convinced that if Firella finds out, she will think he is stupid, and unworthy of her, and leave him. So Karl asks a local writer to help him construct his replies - and an unlikely, but extremely touching, friendship develops between the two men. They both come to learn a great deal about about life from a very different perspective, and when an act of violence shatters their calm, they find their respective appraisal of life shifting in profound ways.

Reviews

Deliberate in pace and carefully insightful in its investigation of character, Chambers latest is a work of art that repays multiple readings -- Michael Cart * Booklist *
Packed to the brim with challenging ideas, the latest from Chambers is simultaneously an acutely observed and surprising love story. An organic yet intricately crafted story of self-discovery . . . This is a generous gift * Publishers Weekly *
This is a teasingly provocative and touching cross-generational story, written with a rare candour about love, sex, thoughts of suicide and growing old -- Julia Eccleshare * Guardian *
Chambers is so skilled, so calmly truthful in his writing. What emerges is not just a moving, unexpected story of the complexity of teenagers, but also a story of later life, of ageing and loss, and what experience really means -- Patrick Ness * Guardian *
It takes a writer with the superb skill and sensitivity of Chambers to adapt the Cyrano de Bergerac story and turn it into a modern tale of grief, growth and acceptance . . . Great tenderness, authentic dialogue and elegantly crafted plotting. A book to be read and re-read -- Sally Morris * Daily Mail *

Author Bio

Aidan Chambers was born in County Durham in 1934. After national service in the Royal Navy he became a teacher and then, for seven years, a monk. His young adult novels have been widely acclaimed, with POSTCARDS FROM NO-MAN'S LAND winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal and the US Michael L Printz Award. With his wife Nancy he ran Signal magazine and he has served as the president of the School Library Association. His devoted services to children's literature were recognised by his receipt of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.