Rachel Ward

Numbers — (2009-2010) Young adult. Publisher: Ever since she was child, Jem has kept a secret: Whenever she meets someone new, no matter who, as soon as she looks into their eyes, a number pops into her head. That number is a date: the date they will die. Burdened with such awful awareness, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. The two plan a trip to the city. But while waiting to ride the Eye ferris wheel, Jem is terrified to see that all the other tourists in line flash the same number. Today's number. Today's date. Terrorists are going to attack London. Jem's world is about to explode!

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Numbers

Numbers is a book that's hard to categorize. It starts out as urban fantasy, then becomes more of an adventure novel, then seems to be a "teaching life lessons" story toward the end.

The heroine, Jem, has a supernatural "gift" that has caused her no end of grief. She sees numbers when she looks at people. As a little girl, she didn't know what the numbers meant — not until her mother's number turned out to be the day she overdosed on drugs. Now a troubled teenager, Jem finds it hard to get close to anyone. How can she get attached to anyone, when she knows the date they will die?

Enter Spider. He's a classmate of Jem's who is teetering on the edge of big trouble. For personal reasons, it took me a little while to warm up to Spider. In Jem's narrative voice, Rachel Ward describes him like this: "One of those people who stand too close to you, doesn't know when to back off." I'm a pretty big introvert and one of my pet peeves is people who keep prodding you, even when you've made it clear you want to be alone. So when Spider does this in Numbers' first scene, I wasn't sure I'd be able to like him as Jem's love interest. Oh, and he has bad B.O. Thankfully, once he and Jem get to know each other better, he's a lot less annoying.

She's not sure she wants to get any closer to him, though, because she can see his number, and she knows he only has a few weeks.

Meanwhile, as Jem and Spider's relationship is developing, their futures seem to be disintegrating. Each gets into hot water at school, and Spider is drawn toward a dangerous crowd. And while all this is going on, Jem is wondering about her "gift." Can the numbers she sees be changed, or are they predestined?

The plot switches gears when Jem and Spider become suspects in a terrorist bombing. The two flee London and travel through the countryside, trying to evade both the police and a gangster that Spider has angered. This section is a complete departure from what came before, but it's interesting. We get to see these two city kids try to survive in the country, and there is further development of the relationship.

Unfortunately, it all descends into implausibility and unanswered questions in the end. [IF YOU'D LIKE TO SEE SOME EXAMPLES, HIGHLIGHT THE FOLLOWING SPOILERS WITH YOUR MOUSE:]

I doubt that Britney would have been willing to shelter Jem in her room. Also, I sure hope Jem's vomiting was just because she was unaccustomed to hearty eating after her time spent roughing it. Because if it was meant as a sign of her pregnancy? It was way too soon for morning sickness.

But what I really can't wrap my mind around is... what happened to the police/terrorism plotline? Am I missing pages, or was it just never resolved? Why do the cops stop suspecting Jem of the bombing? She uses her gift to explain why she ran from the scene, but then she claims she lied, and then after the events of the climax, we never hear anything more about the police.

I have other questions too, like whether Jem sees numbers when she looks at a photograph. She looks at some photos for the police and gives dates, but I wasn't sure if she was making them up or not. (It doesn't work with mirrors, or else she'd know her own number.)

[END OF SPOILERS] The final chapters seem to be preaching a lesson about appreciating life while you have it, and then there's a "twist ending" that isn't all that surprising.

Numbers had a promising start and a suspenseful middle. I appreciated that Ward chose to tell the story through the eyes of a disadvantaged teen, which is unusual in this type of book, and that she touched on some of the classism and racism in Jem's environment. However, the later chapters of the book were disappointing. —Kelly Lasiter

The Chaos

The Chaos is the sequel to Numbers, and is a much better book. The way the numbers work is explained better and the plot is more consistent. The Chaos also has the effect of making Numbers feel like a prequel. Jem is long dead in this installment, and her son’s story has a much larger scope.

It’s the year 2026, and things are a little different: climate change has led to many towns being flooded, and the government microchips people for identification and surveillance. Adam has been raised in a country town by his great-grandmother, Val. When their town is flooded, they move to London, despite a warning from Jem before she died — that vast numbers of Londoners are destined to die on New Year’s Day, 2027.

Adam soon sees these dire numbers too, and the nitty-gritty of his ability is explained. He can, and Jem could, only see the numbers if direct eye contact is made. It doesn’t work with photographs, TV, or mirrors. Adam has an additional dimension to his power that Jem didn’t have: Along with the person’s death date, he gets an impression of how the person will die, and so he learns that most of the New Year’s deaths will involve fire and twisted metal.

He meets Sarah, a pregnant girl with plenty of trouble of her own. She instantly recoils from Adam – she has a recurring nightmare in which he does something horrible amid a fiery cataclysm – yet life keeps throwing them back together in spite of themselves.

One of the strengths of Numbers was its realistic, gritty portrayal of how society spits out teenagers who don’t fit in. This continues in The Chaos, and Adam and Sarah face real-world obstacles as they try to warn people about the coming catastrophe and, perhaps, change a few numbers. How do you warn people, when most of them think you’re just crazy? How do the police treat you when you’re seen as a juvenile delinquent and all of your forebears had a rap sheet too?

The disaster, when it comes, is frightening and the tension nearly unbearable. Rachel Ward does a great job of keeping it personal and showing us intimate, human scenes rather than “panning out” and going for spectacle. It’s rather predictable that Sarah’s dream comes true rather differently than she thinks it will, but it works anyway.

The only disappointing aspect of The Chaos is the ending, which is abrupt and leaves many questions unanswered. I wonder if it’s the setup for a third book… —Kelly Lasiter