Numbers by Rachel Ward

The numbers never lie..., November 27, 2009 This was a so-so YA novel about a girl who has the peculiar ability of knowing the date of a person's death by simply looking into his or her eyes. The premise was original and it started out well, but then the "on the run" narrative got bogged down and the conclusion was disappointing. Jem is orphaned when her mother overdoses on heroin. Four years later, she's 15 and living with a foster mum named Karen, avoiding relationships and living on the fringe because of her peculiar psychic gift for seeing the date of death numbers reflected in the eyes of the people she sees. She doesn't want this curse or gift and is drifting through her life knowing that she is going nowhere even as she attends school to pacify Karen and keep the social workers off her back. One of her fellow students, a tall boy known as Spider, keeps pestering her and following her around until they form a distant and grudging sort of friendship. After both get suspended from school, they decide to spend a day enjoying the city and end up hassling those in a queue for the London Eye -- a giant Ferris wheel. Jem notices something quite odd -- many of those waiting there have the SAME death date in their eyes! In a panic, she senses that something is about to happen and she and Spider are fleeing the area when a bomb explodes and many people are killed. During the ensuing chapters, Jem and Spider are on the run from police and others intent on figuring out if they were involved or if they were witnesses. Jem is haunted and plagued by the death dates -- for you see, she has seen Spider's. Can she change the date or influence these numbers in any way? The story is part adventure, part love story, part paranormal -- but most of the time, it is simply unbelievable. The book started of strong, bogged down in the middle, and then whimpered toward an unsatisfying predictable ending. Ms C.