Vous voulez voir cette page en fran�ais ? Cliquez ici.

Quantity:

More Buying Choices

6 used & new from CDN$ 23.59

Have one to sell? Sell yours here

See larger image

Share your own customer images

Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

What I Was (Audio CD)

by Meg Rosoff (Author), Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

List Price:	CDN$ 38.22
Price:	CDN$ 23.90 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
You Save:	CDN$ 14.32 (37%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

3 new from CDN$ 23.89 3 used from CDN$ 23.59

Frequently Bought Together

Total List Price: CDN$ 71.71
Price For All Three: CDN$ 49.89

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

This item: What I Was by Meg Rosoff
Temporarily out of stock.
Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

American Born Chinese

by Gene Luen Yang

1.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 9.94

Little Brother

by Cory Doctorow

4.8 out of 5 stars (6) CDN$ 14.40

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

by Sherman Alexie

4.7 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 9.99

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials

by Philip Pullman

4.6 out of 5 stars (1,090) CDN$ 9.99

The Arrival

by Shaun Tan

5.0 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 16.05

› Explore similar items

Product Details

Audio CD
Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks; Unabridged edition (February 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1433208539
ISBN-13: 978-1433208539
Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 16 x 3 cm
Shipping Weight: 227 g

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Former YA author Rosoff delivers an affecting buddy story about two adolescent boys in 1960s Britain. An unnamed man recounts his time as a disgruntled student at St. Oswald's boarding school; upon ditching an outdoor physical education class jog, he stumbles upon a mysterious fellow teen named Finn who lives alone and off the grid in a hut by the sea. The protagonist, enraptured by his newfound friend, makes it his business to spend as much time as possible with Finn, a major challenge considering school curfews and that the hut can only be accessed during low tide. Weeks go by and Finn falls ill, setting the stage for a surprising revelation that will dramatically transform both boys. Rosoff's unconventional coming-of-age tale is elegantly crafted, though some readers might be turned off by the narrator's unrelenting cynicism (particularly in his handling of another Oswald schoolboy), and the warning shots the narrator fires off about global warming are unnecessary. Nonetheless, Rosoff elegantly portrays how we often become who we need to be. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile

An award-winning young adult author writes a coming-of-age tale for adults set in the mid-twenty-first century. The unnamed narrator is miserable with his looks, his parents, boarding school life, and his own apathy. He stumbles on Finn, a beautiful boy who lives self-sufficiently in a small beach hut not far from the school. From that point, the narrator begins to take risks, having finally found something that makes sense of his life. The story depends heavily its setting--an isolated British coast--and Ralph Cosham's clear, articulate accent fits the protagonist and his world. While Cosham's delivery is devoid of great emotion--as if to represent the hero's hollowness--his reading becomes slightly breathy near the end, when the story's developing drama comes to a climax. S.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

	74% buy the item featured on this page: What I Was 4.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 23.90
	25% buy Little Brother 4.8 out of 5 stars (6) CDN$ 14.40
	1% buy A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61) 4.1 out of 5 stars (40) CDN$ 11.32
	1% buy King Dork CDN$ 10.36

Explore similar items

Customer Reviews

1 Review

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars "Think about history and tell me that I'm wrong", Jan 25 2008

By	Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: What I Was (Hardcover)

In 1962 Hilary, the young narrator of this novel is packed off to St Oswald's boarding school for boys by his parents deep within the inhospitable plains of East Anglia. A school that has a reputation as a veritable hotbed of cultural mediocrity and is notorious for its long history and low standards, there's hope that St. Oswald' will somehow attempt to transform Hilary into a useful member of society.

Still haunted by his "last two educational disasters," Hilary does his best to create an environment where he can feel at ease. Jaded by the petty dealings of his fellow classmates, life at St Oswald's is anything but happy with the young boy considering the school nothing more than a cheap merchant of social status, "content to sell an inflated sense of self-worth to middle-class boys who are ultimately of no particular merit."

Hilary hungers for new experiences far from the bleak halls, the glares of authority and the taunts of his roommates. One afternoon, after stopping for a drink of water while running along the coast, Hilary meets the young Finn, a teenage boy who seems content to live a life like Robinson Crusoe. Self-sufficient and contented, Finn makes his living by hauling boxes at the market and he not only has no parents, but lives alone and doesn't go to school. According to the government, Finn doesn't actually exist.

Living in a small, cozy hut by the edge of the beach, with its floors free of sand, its worn cotton rugs and its crammed bookcases, the place is unassuming, comfortable and intimate, proving to be the perfect safe harbor for Hilary. While Finn's spirit is new and soft, the cottage is warmed by decades of use and almost at once, this eccentric reclusive young boy entrances this reject from St. Oswald's: "It's as though I'd fallen down a rabbit hole into some idealized version of This Boy's Life."

Soon enough, Hilary is becoming ever more obsessed with Finn as he attempts to escape both day and night from the daily rituals of St Oswald's, endeavoring to spend time with his new friend, similarly envious of him and also concerned as Hilary stalks him at the local market, everything he knows about Finn eventually coming to him in fragments, tiny shards to number and label and fit together.

Despite the cold, they walk and fish, lie on the beach and stare at sunlit clouds or stars in the night sky, pulling in the traps, and messing about in boats. Life just seems so idyllic and safe from the strictures of school and adult life. All the time, Hilary seems content to just study Finn the way another boy might study history, determined to memorize his vocabulary, his movements, his clothes, and what he says and does, and mostly what he thought. Most of all he wants to see himself through his eyes to define himself in relation to Finn.

This isn't so much sexual attraction, although there is a great love, but its more a type of vicarious living, the sensation of living inside another person's life. Eventually ignoring the ever-harsher glares of authority and the taunts of his roommates, Hilary becomes more of a risk taker, braving the school's curfew to spend even more time with Finn. The accusations however, begin in whispers with Reese and Barrat and Gibbon.

Particularly, Reese with his psychotic tendencies taking him to places he's rather not go and who "lurks and lingers and buzzes around in Hilary's head," with his sticky friendship and sly questions and the barest suggestions that he knows what is going on. Of course, events eventually come to a disastrous and dreaded climax on the sandy shores of East Anglia as a huge storm tears sown the coast and Finn's hut becomes in danger of being swept into the sea. It is here against the roar of wonder of the ocean that memory, imagination, and reality clash with tragic consequences.

This lovely novel is all about friendship and history and how life can change, for better or for worse, though an event, an idea or the influence of another person. Succumbing to emotions so wonderful and terrible, Finn accepts Hilary's love instinctly, without responsibility or conditions; that's what makes him so special. The final revelation, the surprise twist is indeed unexpected, but it doesn't really change Hilary's reaction to the events of that year even as Hilary freaks out when he discovers Finn, sick with a fever and covered with blood in his own bed.

What I Was is a boy's story with a twist, but the book is also a meditation on history and how we can carry the past with us wherever we go. This story is one of many, or many parts of several different stories, along with the lives that come before us with the huts and houses, the remains of animals and clothing, "the messages of the past left in bones."

Finn and Hilary share a childlike delight in the beauty of the natural world and in the simplicities of daily life and they possess an unshakable integrity that ultimately makes possible their appreciation of nature and of each other. The story's emotional credibility is enhanced by the fact they are both different, yet seem to be drawn together forever even as we watch Hilary drive to recreate what has been destroyed and once shattered by storms and by the passage of life itself. Mike Leonard January 08.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you?