- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber (6 July 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571230350
- ISBN-13: 978-0571230358
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 753,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Fourteen-year-old Caz and her friend Lucy do the Creepy Thing. It's a bizarre version of 'chicken'. They break into houses while folk are asleep, challenging each other to 'do a creepy'. To 'do a creepy' you approach a sleeping person in the dark, in the dead of night, putting your nose one inch away from the sleeper's face for a count of fifteen seconds. One night, Caz breaks into the house of Sara Metherall, a lonely old woman shunned by the community. Lucy challenges Caz to do the Creepy Thing. Caz rises to the challenge. She creeps, she counts. But just before she completes the count of fifteen the old woman opens her eyes and clamps Caz's wrist with a cold silver bracelet. The next morning the bracelet has disappeared, but left in its place a tattoo. A tattoo that holds a curse. While her life disintegrates around her, Caz has to find a way of lifting that curse. Or returning it to the place it came from...
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although the title is the name of the game Caz plays - where she and her friend Lucy sneak into people's houses while they are sleeping and go nose-to-nose with them for fifteen seconds - it's not really about the game. And although there are creepy elements in the book, it's not really about them either.
At the beginning of the book, Caz is caught by an old lady when doing the Creepy Thing, and the old lady clamps a bracelet onto Caz's arm, which promptly disappears, leaving a glowing tattoo that Caz tries in vain to erase. But then Caz realises that the bracelet has given her empathy - she can see how people are feeling and their real reasons for behaving the way they do. It's also responsible for creating a spooky old woman who turns up now and then to scare Caz.
If she is to get rid of the bracelet mark, Caz has to change something about herself - and THAT is the real story here. It's about people learning how to be kinder; how to see beneath the surface, and as such is a lovely story about Caz and her development into a more compassionate person. Kindness doesn't have to mean weakness.
At the beginning of the book, Caz is caught by an old lady when doing the Creepy Thing, and the old lady clamps a bracelet onto Caz's arm, which promptly disappears, leaving a glowing tattoo that Caz tries in vain to erase. But then Caz realises that the bracelet has given her empathy - she can see how people are feeling and their real reasons for behaving the way they do. It's also responsible for creating a spooky old woman who turns up now and then to scare Caz.
If she is to get rid of the bracelet mark, Caz has to change something about herself - and THAT is the real story here. It's about people learning how to be kinder; how to see beneath the surface, and as such is a lovely story about Caz and her development into a more compassionate person. Kindness doesn't have to mean weakness.
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Caz and Lucy enliven their mid-teens by breaking into houses at night and creeping up on the sleeping inhabitants. But one such trick goes sour when an old woman wakes and clamps a strange bracelet on Caz. The next morning Caz finds the bracelet replaced by an unwanted tattoo, and from there on it seems that Caz's luck has taken a turn for the worse: she is pursued by a frightening woman who no one else can see, her appearance and schoolwork decline, and her mother takes up with a maths teacher! Has Caz deserved this curse, and can she get rid of it? And is it really a curse?
This is Graham Joyce's second novel for Young Adults, and he's careful not to undermine credibility by talking down: expect a bit of swearing, drunken men groping and hitting young girls - all human life is here. He throws in a disturbing evangelical church, but avoids damning the believers with the belief. While our heroine is forced to engage with distressing and sometimes seedy aspects of life, she also discovers that she can cope with it all and even help others along the way. Despite the title, it's not as creepy as some of Joyce's stuff, but nor does it airbrush away the difficulties of teenage life. Perhaps because of how quickly I read this, I wanted more middle: solutions to Caz's problems seemed to be emerging even before the problems were fully understood; but this was still very enjoyable and sharp.
This is Graham Joyce's second novel for Young Adults, and he's careful not to undermine credibility by talking down: expect a bit of swearing, drunken men groping and hitting young girls - all human life is here. He throws in a disturbing evangelical church, but avoids damning the believers with the belief. While our heroine is forced to engage with distressing and sometimes seedy aspects of life, she also discovers that she can cope with it all and even help others along the way. Despite the title, it's not as creepy as some of Joyce's stuff, but nor does it airbrush away the difficulties of teenage life. Perhaps because of how quickly I read this, I wanted more middle: solutions to Caz's problems seemed to be emerging even before the problems were fully understood; but this was still very enjoyable and sharp.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I do not agree with publishers malpractice to release a UK version alongside a US version of the very same book.
Often the title is changed and sometimes, like in this case, the names of places and characters.
In times of online shopping where people by globally rather than locally this is bound to lead to disappointment and I am prepared to boycott publishers and authors who allow this to happen.
Book sellers should at least make a reference to this fact for all to see.
Often the title is changed and sometimes, like in this case, the names of places and characters.
In times of online shopping where people by globally rather than locally this is bound to lead to disappointment and I am prepared to boycott publishers and authors who allow this to happen.
Book sellers should at least make a reference to this fact for all to see.
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