Review: Leaving Paradise By: Simone Elkeles

Title: Leaving Paradise
Author: Simone Elkeles
Publisher: Flux, 312 Pages (April 1, 2007)
From: Purchased from Amazon

Synopsis: Nothing has been the same since Caleb Becker left a party drunk, got behind the wheel, and hit Maggie Armstrong. Even after months of painful physical therapy, Maggie walks with a limp. Her social life is nil and a scholarship to study abroad-her chance to escape everyone and their pitystares-has been canceled. After a year in juvenile jail, Caleb's free . . . if freedom means endless nagging from a transition coach and the prying eyes of the entire town. Coming home should feel good, but his family and ex-girlfriend seem like strangers.



Caleb and Maggie are outsiders, pigeon-holed as "criminal" and "freak." Then the truth emerges about what really happened the night of the accident and, once again, everything changes. It's a bleak and torjourney for Caleb and Maggie, yet they end up finding comfort and strength from a surprising source: each other.

Review: 5 Stars - LOVED this book. Simone Elkeles has written another great story. From page one - Leaving Paradise kept my full attention, with alternating character chapter points of view, I was able to get a better idea as to who Maggie and Caleb both are and how they each remembered the accident that forever changed both their lives, and the ones around them.

To read how they both struggled through things, trying to get back to whatever normal they could was sometimes hard to read. They had each changed so much that what was, could really never be again.

Maggie wants nothing to do with Caleb when he returns home after being in jail for a year for the accident, however they find that to heal and become the people they are suppose to be they really need each other. The twists and turns each face to forgive and heal really shine throughout the story. It made both Maggie and Caleb feel more real from beginning to end.

The ending had my heartbreaking on many different levels. This was the first book in a long while that I was surprised at the ending. It was hard to read, but you felt it was the right way to end things... for now.

Simone Elkeles writes a great story about a hard subject, one that many can relate to on various levels. The forgiveness part of the story made me hope that if faced with something this horrible, caused by someone else that I'd be as strong as each of these characters and be able to deal with things as well as they did. I'm happy to say that I won't be forgetting about this anytime soon and am excited to read the next installment in the series out fall 2010.