The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly by Rebecca Ansari

A complex cast of characters all help to put the puzzle together~ and the mystery is multifaceted and intriguing. When he finds that his parents have no recollection of a little brother named Liam, Charlie's life changes forever.Īnsari creates a stunning world of melancholic mystery. His little brother Liam is driving him crazy! When he wakes, Liam isn't in his room anymore, but he isn't anywhere else either.

Last year Charlie went to bed on the eve of his birthday hoping he'd be gifted his own room. Remember when you were a kid and in a fit of sadness/regret/rage you wished you had never been born? This book walks Charlie and his brother, Liam, down that path. Thank you to the author for providing a copy of The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly to collabookation for review. The note leads Charlie and Ana to make some profound discoveries about a magic they didn’t know existed, and they soon realize that if they're going to save Liam, they may need to risk being forgotten themselves, forever. The search seems hopeless-until Charlie receives a mysterious note, written in Liam’s handwriting. The only person who believes Charlie is his best friend, Ana-even if she has no memory of Liam, she is as determined as Charlie is to figure out what happened to him. No one even remembers him-not Charlie’s mother, who has been lost in her own troubles and not Charlie’s father, who is gone frequently on business trips. Then came the morning when the bunk, and Liam, disappeared forever.

Liam, his eight-year-old kid brother, who, up until a year ago, slept in the bunk above Charlie, took pride in being as annoying as possible, and was the only person who could make Charlie laugh until it hurt.

Which is why it makes everyone uncomfortable when he talks about his brother. A happy ending, although neater than the otherwise smartly but heartbreakingly messy story suggests, is well earned by each character’s acceptance that life, love, and family are necessarily complicated and will always be.Charlie O’Reilly is an only child.

Ansari’s layered mystery is as supernaturally intriguing as it is realistically unsettling, as depression and loss seem to haunt Charlie and his family. A mysterious note soon points the duo in the direction of their baseball coach Jonathan, who tells them of an asylum full of children erased from their lives by their regrets, and Charlie is determined to investigate what may be the answer to Liam’s disappearance. Only Ana, Charlie’s best friend, seems to believe him about Liam, and the two of them attempt together to figure out what happened. Liam vanished a year ago, and only Charlie seems to remember Liam ever existed he’s also troubled by strangely vivid dreams of being part of a family emigrating from Ireland in the 1800s. On his twelfth birthday, Charlie wishes desperately for his little brother Liam back.

The Missing Piece of Charlie O'Reilly by Rebecca Ansari