Center for Teaching & Learning

Since her mother’s death when she was seven, Jem has known about numbers. Fifteen-year-old Jem has kept the biggest secret ever.  When Jem looks into anybody’s eyes she gets a number stamped into her mind.  That number represents the date of that person’s death.  Jem tried to tell people when she was younger.  Her response was always, “It’s not her name, it is Mommy’s special number.”
Jem gets sent from foster parent to foster parent until she ends up in Karin’s home.  Karin is a strict woman that makes Jem lives in a very small room.  Jem avoids physical interactions with others because of the dates of their deaths that pops into her head with any eye contact.  Jem’s only friend is a freakishly tall, African-American boy named Spider.  Spider’s death date is less than two weeks away.
Spider and Jem have a fun day together on a day out in London until Jem sees a tourist’s number.  She sees the same date on tourists over and over and the date is that same day.  Jem tells Spider to run and moments later, a bomb blows up the London Eye.
I loved how Rachel Ward crafted this book because she made the plot intense and has a very different writing style from any I have ever read.  I had the feeling it was exiting and was not as gory as I thought it would be when I first picked the book up to interview.
You cannot read this book with any skimming or skipping or you won’t have all the input from the police about Jem and her problems with Spider.  Rachel Ward cut right down to just the important information and didn’t put any irrelevant or side plots in the chapters.
I love how Jem asks herself questions which made me think the same.  That way I had the urge to find out what was going to happen next:  Are the police going to catch her?  If they do, what will happen?
Numbers has most original plot concept I have read.  If you love mysteries or you are an action lover you have found the perfect book. When I read this book, I felt I had an IMAX movie temporarily built into my head.  What I found was that Rachel Ward created a strong hope for Jem and then she crashed and ruined it.
Another hope for Spider and Jem ventures into the book again, and makes the plot structure much more involved.  I am looking forward to the sequel that will be published this summer.  I am sure that there will be more exiting mysteries to wrap my mind around.  Something to keep in mind is: “I’d avoid eye contact if I were you.”
Gabrielle