Thoughts For 50 - Pages 301 - 358 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Lauras Thoughts

As Jen Said 'Hey Macarena... WTF?'

The only thing memorable about this book is that it annoyingly embeds the macarena song into your head for days! I do think that the book has a lot of potential with the plot line but for some reason it has been gone about the wrong way, I was hoping that as the book progressed it would all slot together, with only two weeks left I am starting to doubt it. I really would like to be proved wrong... I can't believe we will actually be finishing this book on Christmas Eve/Day... is that a blessing or the opposite.

Jens Thoughts
Hey Macarena…..WTF?
I just don’t get it, is it me not wanting to get it?
I feel I am doing this book a disservice by reading it and not being fully understanding of what Claire North is trying to achieve. The basic premise is a good idea, but something is holding back its potential.
One of my predictions sort of came true this week; it has makings of a really good thriller, but I have no idea where it is all heading.
We have two weeks left on this book and I really cannot wait to finish it.

Laura Predicts

• Hope is playing right into Byrons hands and has been programmed to cause even more mayhem that is going on at the moment
• Hope will not be able to execute the task because Luca Evard will have an unexpected influence over her still
• Fillipa will help Hope become remembered or Hope will be a hero and become instantly remembered because of it

Jen Predicts

• Hope will become a patient and antidote to perfection
• Fillipa and Hope will become friends
• Byron will die

Thoughts For 50 - Pages 253 - 300 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Lauras Thoughts

I don't know what it is maybe I had some of that brain testing/surgery that Hope had during this segment but I think I may have enjoyed that. Claire is slowly starting to focus less on useless facts and filling the pages up and actually writing a fictional story again now!

I'm starting to find that I am slowly gaining an understanding of Hope and who she is, I feel like Claire North has been quite clever in the way that she is now allowing us to see a bit of who Hope is as Hope is begining to trust and let people in. Maybe North wanted us to feel like the other characters when meeting Hope, as though she was a stranger to us aswell.

 

Jens Thoughts

Every week I have to pick up this book, I think: ‘do I have to?’ I have never picked it up wanting to read it. It’s not like with our previous ‘Thoughts for Fifty’ book, were it was a joy to read every week. It’s like I am constantly waiting for something to happen. The characters I tend to forget too, it’s probably not Claire North’s fault: this book was not meant to be read in instalments. I believe the whole thing is a metaphor and a comment on society: those who do not have perfection, will be forgotten.
I love the relationship between Hope and Byron14 though, it’s just the narrative and the bits in between I do not like: the factual bits. I just want more action that’s all.

Laura Predicts

• Byron14 dies and Hope wants revenge for it
• Byron figures out what makes Hope forgettable and just makes herself forgettable without helping Hope be remembered and Hope can't find her.

Jen Predicts 

• Byron14 will have perfection
• Hope will get perfection and be remembered
• Grace will make another appearance

Thoughts For 50 - Pages 201 - 252 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Laura's Thoughts
I feel like I might be owing Claire North an apology over the next few posts... I enjoyed the majority of these 50 pages only getting lost a little when the subject of perfection came up during a conversation between Byron14 and Hope, up to this point I have found it hard to find an emotional connection to Hope making me feel disconnected from the book but I think we finally gained some emotion from her and hope it will continue to grow from there.
 

Jen's Thoughts
So yes I enjoyed these last fifty pages, is there hope for Hope? The first bit was mostly about her getting into Perfection for Byron14; filled with tedious facts and narratives, which as a reader I didn’t really want to know. But the second bit was the meeting of Byron14 and Hope. It was most revealing about the app ‘Perfection’ and Byron14’s story and ended on a cliff-hanger of Hope stating why she is obsessed with it. And no it wasn’t some lesbian undertone with her and the girl who committed suicide earlier on in the book.
As a character Hope is dislikeable from the start, but I feel we have reached a turning point with her and with the book. Finally I feel we are getting somewhere. I actually felt for with her revelation and wanted to give her a hug. I just hope that next week’s fifty pages don’t go back on this. Claire North’s book as a whole is very up and down, I think the story in short is a good idea; I just wanted it to move quicker. I am an impatient bitch.

Laura Predicts

• Byron14 will take Hope under her wing and help her become remembered
• Parker will return to Hope and admit that he remembers her anyway
• We will become more emotionally involved with Hope

Jen Predicts

• Hope will meet Parker again and he will remember her
•  Byron14 and Hope will become firm friends like mother and daughter
• A pregnant Hope?
• Rafe will end up dead 

Thoughts For 50 - Pages 149 - 200 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Laura's Thoughts

I am starting to feel as though I am reading a non-fiction book in parts rather than a fiction book. In some parts of this story Claire North can write from a sentence to a page of information based on the cities that Hope is travelling to, to definitions of words we clearly already know otherwise we wouldn't be able to read and understand the book.

I am hoping to be proved wrong as the book draws to an end and achieve the understanding of what is actually going on. The last few pages of this section actually grabbed my attention and made me want to read more, I hope it keeps it up.

 

Jen's Thoughts

Well where do I start? It’s a very confusing book.
It delves into the past of a character we haven’t met yet??? What is going on???
But I think I have worked it out…. or maybe my brain has worked overtime. The whole story of Hope is a metaphor and a statement on society about vanity and the quest for perfection. The personified Hope wants to bring down this ‘Perfection’ app and the reason why she is forgotten, because she is usually denied as people tend to lose hope in various situations.
Whether I am right or not remains to be seen…. I just want to gain some understanding of this book, as every week I feel it’s a chore in reading the next fifty pages. If I am right, could Claire North be in fact a genius?

Laura Predicts

• Parker is on the opposing team and will prevent Hope from completing her mission
• Hope will hand herself in to stop something happening to one of these people she always talks about missing
  

Jen Predicts

What can I possibly predict...

• Hope will kill someone

Thoughts For 50 - Pages 100 - 148 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Laura's Thoughts

I'm starting to find it really ironic with this book being based on a girl that nobody can remember. This book will be just as easy to forget as Hope is, well based on the way it is going so far.

I experienced the opposite of last weeks 50 pages this week where I began by enjoying the first 20 or so pages of this section and then hated the rest where as last week I hated the beginning and enjoyed the rest. I feel as though Claire has some good ideas but just hasnt got the content to create such a big book, so far anyway.

Jen's Thoughts

Could it be this book is starting to go somewhere? After last week’s cliff-hanger, I was sort of looking to reading it. I do think it’s a post-modernist book, were the story doesn’t really move forward. I have only read one book of this genre and I disliked it for that reason. I do hope Hope isn’t one of these books, were I will end up hating the characters and the book itself. I got a bit of excitement with the fire incident, but the narrative doesn’t really sustain it with what it is going on.
I think this is the type of book were you have to read it in one go and not fifty pages per week. The fragmented reading doesn’t lend itself to this genre at all. With Falling by Jane Green, the storyline was maintained and I would have rung in sick to work to finish it.
I don’t want to reveal too much with what is going with Hope….SPOILERS and all that.

Laura Predicts

• Byron14 will be someone that she has met in the past
• Hope will track down Parker
• Hope will get revenge for nearly being burnt alive

Jen Predicts

• Parker will change his mind
• Hopes mistakes will come back to haunt her
• Byron14 will reveal himself
• Hope will be rekidnapped by her family 

Thoughts For 50 - Pages 51 - 99 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Laura's Thoughts

When reading Falling I could not wait for the weekend to come around so I could indudge in more of the book, reading this book I dread the weekends coming around and wait till the very last moment I can to pick it up and my first thought was 'Do I have to?!' 

When I read a book I will not move on until I know I have took the whole page in that I have just read and with this one I am feeling as though I have forgot the previous sentence never mind the page, it doesn't happen to me often either.

In my opinion there is no structure to the plot, Whether this is what North is going for and it becomes clear further down the line I don't know but for now it feels as though she has put together lots of little stories and literally thrown them onto the page. I feel really harsh saying this but it's just how I feel.

During the last half of this section I did become a little curious, I think I like the present parts of the book bt struggle with when Hope is talking about the past or describing things in detail such as bulletpointing and definitions, at such parts I feel as though I am reading a non-fiction book and loose interest.

Jen's Thoughts

I am really not sure about this book at all. The narrative is flipping between the past and present and I still don’t understand how Hope became forgotten. For some reason I think she is dead and is a ghost…. and that is why she finds thieving so easy. But then how can she reappear? It seems Claire North is playing with the reader, with most books I have read I get a sense of where the story is heading but with this one I have no clue. The story did gain some direction with the competition over the stolen diamonds; two guys want them or do they just want Hope? And what is this app ‘Perfection’ all about? I assume as this is an impossible trait to achieve it makes people want it more and it is what certain people will try for and risk anything for? Hope as a character seems to defy perfection, I don’t find her likeable at all and I certainly wouldn’t want to be her.

Laura Predicts

• Byron14 is Parker
• Parker and Hope fall in love
• People start remembering Hope and she gets in a lot of trouble for everything shes done in the past

Jen Predicts

• Parker will feature again
• Byron14 will rescue Hope from her current situation

Thoughts For 50 - Pages 1 - 50 Of The Sudden Appearance Of Hope By Claire North

My name is Hope Arden, and you won't know who I am. We've met before - a thousand times. I am the girl the world forgets.
It started when I was sixteen years old. A slow declining, an isolation, one piece at a time.
A father forgetting to drive me to school. A mother setting the table for three, not four. A teacher who forgets to chase my missing homework. A friend who looks at me and sees a stranger.
No matter what I do, the words I say, the people I hurt, the crimes I commit - you will never remember who I am.
That makes my life difficult. It also makes me dangerous...
THE SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF HOPE is the tale of a girl no one remembers, yet her story will stay with you forever.

Laura's Thoughts
It was about time we got stuck into another book for our Thoughts for 50 feature, no matter what we read after Falling by Jane Green the book would have had a lot to live up to. The problem I am having with this one is that although both me and Jen were eagar to buy this book when we first read the blurb in work, the eagarness slowly drifted away for no apparent reason... Maybe it is part of Hopes mysteriousness but I suppose that would achieve the opposite affect of what Claire North was hoping to achieve with this book. I usually like when a book is written in first person however so far in this book it isn't working for me, North is trying to convey how intellegent Hope is for us by describing things we would never have to know in our life times and for me thats boring... saying that I didn't think I would become the slightest bit intrigued when reading the first 25 pages but the second half of our first read got my attention just a little bit... I am willing to give this book the benefit of the doubt... for now.

Jen's Thoughts

Finally we are reading this book, picking it up after a few months of buying it, took away some of its first appeal: but reading it we are. The narrative is not dissimilar to E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars, as I don’t know how trustworthy she is to take us through the story. As readers we are thrown in at the deep end, with flashbacks and a present day thrills. As a character Hope seems very unlikable and not someone I would choose to spend time with. I think the fact is I can’t trust her, but I feel what she has been through has made who she is. For some reason every time I picture her, I see her in a black leather jumpsuit like the Matrix or Mission Impossible. I will keep reading it every week though as I am very intrigued about this ‘forgotten’ girl.

Laura Predicts

• More boring information we don't have to know
• Hope getting a side kick/ this person messaging her becoming an important pat of the story

Jen Predicts

• Someone will remember her
• She will get caught out