The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson 

A knife ripped through the veil between now and then and I fell in…

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson is a book not to be missed. It is both beautiful and terrible at the same time. Deeply emotional with fear and real, raw hurt. Where anger rages and hurt bubbles between the pages.

Fire boils in the desert – coloured sky, breathing poison down his lover’s throat and eating her children…

Frantic, melancholic, important, wise, real, sad, pathetic, brave, aching, daunting. These are thoughts that came to me while reading this story where the past is brought to the future, events which can never be erased, that have no place in the civilian world where they clash with expectations and petty every-day drama.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is a term often battered blithely around by the uninformed, by those who have no way of knowing the intensity and ugly truth. This book successfully cracks open a door to reveal a slither of reality, of humanity.

Recommended age: 14+

Title: The Impossible Knife of Memory
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Publication Date: 7 January 2014

Publisher: Viking Books
Source: Purchased

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For the past five years, Hayley Kincain and her father, Andy, have been on the road, never staying long in one place as he struggles to escape the demons that have tortured him since his return from Iraq. Now they are back in the town where he grew up so Hayley can attend school. Perhaps, for the first time, Hayley can have a normal life, put aside her own painful memories, even have a relationship with Finn, the hot guy who obviously likes her but is hiding secrets of his own.   — Extract from Goodreads.com