I wanted to love this story, especially after it had been compared to Catcher in the Rye. Like Holden, Mathilda — or "Lufwa" as she'd like to be known — has suffered the loss of a sibling, been emotionally starved by her parents, and communicates in fragments, but that's where the likeness ends.Like many other reviewers, I felt that the voice in the first half of the book was young, precocious, and sharp but fell apart somewhere between uncovering a handful of emails belonging to her dead sister...

Mathilda Savitch was a pretty unusual read. I thought it was going to be completely different from what it turned out to be. The summary in the back of the book states that Mathilda is trying to find the truth of her sister's death. It's less about her finding the truth than it is about her trying to cope with the grief brought on by her sister's death.I've read a couple of reviews that mention that the voice of the Mathilda rang false for them. To me, Mathilda was like any other teen girl who w...

The back cover blurb uses the Catcher comparison, and I'm usually drawn in by that. The first chapters held promise. I didn't like the character but I hoped that as I read on, I would come to love her in the same way that I love Holden. Both are confused kids who don't communicate effectively with their parents; both have suffered the loss of a sibling; both do really stupid things in an effort to deal with the loss.However, Mathilda doesn't change. While the inner workings of her mind are fasci...

There's a weird contrast going on in this book: the narrator's voice is rapier sharp, tonally perfect, and highly memorable. But the events that take place seem vague, flabby, and a bit scattershot, and the central incident--the death of the narrator's sister--is handled melodramatically. Still, the keenness of Mathilda's observations and the truths she tells make this one more than worth reading.

I loved this book! Mathilda's voice is so unique - and to think it was written by a grown man. Her voice is unique, but the reader totally understands her thoughts and is drawn into her world. I definitely want to read this again because I think there's something deeper than what I got from reading it the first time. But I absolutely loved this. This is the first book I have LOVED in a long time.

Reviewed by LadyJay for TeensReadToo.comMathilda Savitch believes that her sister, Helene, was murdered - pushed in front of a train by an insane man. The killer is still out there, and no one seems to be doing anything about it.Mathilda's parents seem oblivious to anything except their own pain. Her mother suffers from bouts of depression, finding solace at the bottom of a bottle. Her father tries to maintain a sense of normalcy, but Mathilda knows it is a façade.She decides to do some investig...

That feeling you get, after you read a book, and you think to yourself...what? Much like the other reviews, Mr. Lodato convinced me I was reading about a 13-year old girl's coming-of-age story, but I am not convinced that this was the most accurate representation. Mathilda is mean, twisted and cannot be trusted as a narrator. The latter would have made me pick up the book and give it a go, but the plot line is horrible. Simple horrid.All the while I am reading, I am waiting for this grand advent...

Some brilliant sentences and moments in a sea of mediocrity and cliches.

i should wait to comment. i know this...but here's what i figured. you sit down to a meal at a new restaurant. you take the first bite. the food is sublime, the taste is remarkable. that very moment is memorable in its own right. that first impression, that feeling of being introduced to something spectacular. irrelevant if you wind up hating the meal because you stumbled upon a rancid turnip six bites later or you got acid reflux three hours after paying the check. that first bite remains intac...

Mathilda Savitch wants to be awful. Like so many adolescent girls, she lies to her parents; steals cigarettes; coerces her friends into illicit activity; riffles through her sibling’s belongings; and ponders that great teenaged imponderable: sex. What casts her desire to be bad in more uncertain light, however, is the calamity that has produced it: the violent death, a year prior to the novel’s opening, of her older sister, Helene. Emotionally stranded by her parents—torpor-consumed in the wake...

I picked up this book to read recently and I wish I hadn’t. It’s a coming of age tale with a twist: depressing tale of a mentally disturbed teen who feels responsible for her sister’s suicide because she taunted her in frustration one day to just ‘go ahead and do it’. She lies, she antagonizes, she hurts and she is generally wallowing in misery.There isn’t anything beautiful, uplifting, or edifying about this book. In addition the pacing is frenzied, as if written by an amphetamine addict.

Mathilda is lost in a world of grief, her sister has just tragically died when hit by a train, her mother and father ignore her and are too wrapped up in their own misery to see how Mathilda is suffering.They think someone pushed Helene in front of the train but is that the truth?Mathilda is on a journey of self discovery, trying to make sense out of everything that has happened and also at the same time try too unravel the secret life of Helene because the more she delves into her secrets the m...

I did not like this novel. It’s me, Novel, not you. Mathilda Savitch by Victor Lodato is a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” award winner, whatever that means. I bought it over five years ago (I write the purchase dates of my books inside the covers so I can be embarrassed by how long it takes me to read them) when I was browsing. It was an impulse buy. While I found it to be interesting/vexing and well-written (but in a style that I didn’t like), I eventually felt disappointed and irr...

From page 1, I was hooked on this book. It is a page turner, and the sort of book that you never want to finish; you just want it to go on forever.The writing style reminded me of ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ J.D. Salinger — the main difference being that the narrator is a teenage girl instead of a teenage boy, but in essence, the way the story is told is very similar, especially as both characters also have issues in regard to their mental health. There are also a couple of references in the book t...

REALLY liked this one. Was an unusal read. I read that the author was a poet and I guess that is why, but the style was very stream of consciousness and was constantly sliding in and out of reality, fantasy and memory. It also felt like the narator was in a fugue state, like if you had to paint them, the image would be out of focus. No hard edges. The title character is a bit odd, no doubt, but very sympathetic in what she is going through. Her sister died the previous year and her mother has su...

I bought this book based on the first sentence, where Mathilda tells the audience that she has decided to be awful. The prose was poetic and wonderful at first, and I expected to luxuriate in the language of this book and savor it, but it was all downhill after the first couple of chapters. Not only does the prose become less poetic, but the story kind of sucks. I mean, I can believe that a teenage girl would think along the lines that Mathilda does, or that she would construct the inner world t...

Mathilda Savitch tells the story of her life so far in this odd but engaging and powerful novel. Though not specifically revealed, she would seem to be around 12 or 13, the remaining daughter of parents so grief stricken at the death of their older, 16 year old daughter a year earlier that they are almost dysfunctional, sleepwalking through life and still unable to deal with their loss, and certainly doing a poor job of parenting. Mathilda, one of the most precocious kids you will ever meet betw...

I recieved this book free through Goodreads First Reads.This book is hard to describe...it's unlike anything I have ever read before. It is very intriguing and I really couldn't put it down. There are dark moments and lighter moments. It really gets into a young adults thoughts.I highly recommend this book!!!!

Mathilda Savitch has a sister that died. Her mother and father are grieving by isolating themselves from Mathilda and leaving her to her own devices -- which isn't such a good idea. In her grief, Mathilda wants to talk about her sister, but it's the one thing her parents won't discuss with her. The synopsis is a bit misleading, but this is a coming of age story in that Mathilda is trying to figure out who she is within her family as it is reshaped by this loss. The comparison is made to Holden C...

Wow. This is a dark, comic, devastatingly beautiful take on growing up amidst terrors both real and imagined.The cover copy/plot summary will give you the bare bones of the story, but there is so much more within these pages. Mathilda is a character who will keep you wondering long after you've turned the last page.