The Name On Your Wrist

By Author / Illustrator

Helen Hiorns

Genre

Adventure

Age range(s)

11+

Publisher

Penguin Random House Children's UK

ISBN

9780552569521

Format

Paperback / softback

Published

02-01-2014

Synopsis

It's the first thing they teach you when you start school. But they don't need to; your parents tell you when you're first learning how to say your name. It's drummed into you whilst you're taking your first stumbling steps. It's your lullaby. From the moment it first appears, you don't tell anyone the name on your wrist.

In Corin's world, your carpinomen - the name of your soul mate, marked indelibly on your wrist from the age of two or three - is everything. It's your most preciously guarded secret; a piece of knowledge that can give another person ultimate power over you. People spend years, even decades, searching for the one they're supposed to be with.

But what if you never find that person? Or you do, but you just don't love them? What if you fall for someone else - someone other than the name on your wrist?

And what if - like Corin - the last thing in the world you want is to be found?

The gripping debut novel from the winner of the inaugural Sony Young Movellist Award.

Reviews

A gripping story based on an intriguing, original idea from this young, new author. Everyone has the name of their soul mate naturally written on their wrist. The names are guarded as a secret and people spend years searching for the one they are meant to spend their life with. Divorce rates are miniscule, and life is harmonious; after all, who would leave their predestined soul mate? To Corin, whose father has died and whose sister is mentally unstable, things don't seem so easy. She hates the name on her wrist, is determined not to search for him. After meeting the handsome and intelligent Colton and becoming more and more involved with him, and dependent on him, she starts to question the system and wonder what would happen if she ignored the names on their wrists and stuck together through love and in defiance of convention? It is a very strong story, with many threads to make teenagers think. Do we have control over our own destiny? How much influence does the government have over our lives? Should we be free to make our own choices and our own mistakes? How far would you go to rebel against a regime you thought was wrong can martyrdom, dying for a cause, ever be justified? This book deserves to be read, and should turn into a best seller. 261 pages/ Ages 13+/ Reviewed by Melanie Chadwick, school librarian