Type of bind: Turtleback
EAN num: 9780606096058
ISBN number: 0606096051
Label: Demco Media
Manufacturer: Demco Media
Printing Date: 1996-09
Publishing house: Demco Media
Age index: Young Adult
Sale Popularity Level: 7339533
Studio: Demco Media
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
Caroline B. Cooney, Losing Christina: Fire (Scholastic, 1991)
The closing book in Cooney's Losing Christina trilogy shows the same strengths and weaknesses as the previous book, Snow; the main annoyance of the author choosing to spend a great deal of time reprising events from previous books in the series is balanced by Cooney's mastery of pace and somewhat interesting (if a bit stock) characters. Certainly worth continuing on if you've read the very first two in the series. ***
Rated by buyers 
-
I'd like to start my review by saying that I am currently twenty-five years old and I still have a copy of this book on my shelf.
The reason for this is when I was 13 years old, there was a series of horror books out called Point Horror. I was an avid reader at that age and I saved up some money to buy myself some books from this series. This was the very very first book I bought, so it will always be special to me.
I must admit that when I read this book, I didn't quite understand it, but this was because I did not know at the time that this book was actually the last book in a trilogy (the other two are called The Fog and The Snow) and that it was picking up where the other two books left off.
So, I got the other two and read them, then re-read this book.
It was absolutely brilliant. The story revolves around thirteen-year old Christina who gets involved in a terrifying psychological mind game with the two malicious Shevvingtons.
She watches two friends - Anya, a beautiful, brilliant senior collapse mentally and Dolly, an innocent sicth-grader become a trembling nervous wreck.
In this book, the Shevvingtons turn their attention to her and endeavor to destroy her ...with fire.
I loved this series back then, and I still love it now.
Rated by buyers 
-
I'll admit it. I'm actually not a fan of Cooney's. I find her stories to be trite and two-dimensional for the most part (not to mention that - speaking as someone with bipolar disorder - I find her portrayals of the mental health community in many of her books to be rather questionable at best in their accuracy) and yet I am a huge fan of this series and have been since its release. To me this series was where she started to show the maturity you find in her more recent writings instead of the R.L.Stine-esque saw-it-coming-a-mile-away pulp horror books that kept me entertained in like the fourth grade. I'm twenty-five and I still reread this series time and again.
The outward plot is fairly straightforward: Christina Romney is a thirteen-year old girl who has come from a small rural island and a very sheltered life to live on mainland Maine for her very first year at middle school (seventh grade). The couple who are boarding her and a handful of other students from the island are Arnold and Candy Shevvington, the school principal and the seventh-grade English teacher. While she likes them at first, Christina quickly catches on that there's something very off about the Shevvingtons, and is convinced after watching her friend Anya slowly collapse in front of her own eyes (Book 1: The Fog). She very nearly lost her friend Dolly in the second book, The Snow - managing not only to save her but also to help Anya recover some of the damage done in the very first book's timeline.
In this final installment, the Shevvingtons have turned all their resources to silencing Christina, perhaps determined that they will have at least one successful victim this year, perhaps deciding that the irony of destroying the one person who has been trying to bring them down all year would be too good to pass up. Either way, the Shevvingtons expound on the rumour they started in the previous installment - that Christina likes to play with fire a little too much. In this book she faces the challenge now not only of ultimately discrediting the Shevvingtons and aiding her friends... but of saving herself.
To me this series does a good job of juxtaposing the very ordinary struggles of a student in her very first year of middle school (difficult assignments, unfair teachers, noticing boys) against the very dark and chilling theme of a psychological thriller. She isn't just facing a mean or unfair teacher, she is facing two sadists who delight in destroying people just because they can. It's a very frightening idea, having no one believe you when all you can do to fight back is tell the truth.
The very first book in this series nearly lost me with the very first few chapters - the man in the wet suit, the changing poster - it seemed silly, but as the books progressed and Cooney seemed to settle more into her world and the scenario she had written out, things began to tie together and become cohesive, an interesting read that made me actually go out and buy the series instead of rolling my eyes at the various improbabilities of the situation Christina has found herself in.
In short - they are a fun read, I like them a lot. Now go buy them. :)
Rated by buyers -
It was all right of a book... well, I'd say more exciting than the very first two, but some parts still dragged a bit.
Rated by buyers -
This is a great series (Fire, Fog, Snow)! It is my favorite Caroline B. Cooney series.
Find other books like this one:
