Blog Tour - Relativity by Antonia Hayes

Ethan is an exceptionally gifted young boy, obsessed with physics and astronomy.

His single mother Claire is fiercely protective of her brilliant, vulnerable son. But she can’t shield him forever from learning the truth about what happened to him when he was a baby; why Mark had to leave them all those years ago.

Now age twelve, Ethan is increasingly curious about his past, especially his father’s absence in his life.  When he intercepts a letter to Claire from Mark, he opens a lifetime of feelings that, like gravity, will pull the three together again.

Relativity is a tender and triumphant story about unbreakable bonds, irreversible acts, and testing the limits of love and forgiveness.

Title: Relativity
Author: Antonia Hayes
Published by: Corsair
Publication Date: 19th Jan 2017
Links: UK: Amazon US: Amazon

My Review

This is a beautiful story about a twelve year old boy called Ethan and his mother Claire.
Ethan is being bullied at school, he sees the world differently to other people and is obsessed with physics and this causes the other children to call him Stephen Hawking.
When Ethan gets into a fight with his ex best friend Will, things come to a head and Claire and Will's parents are called to the school.

I felt very sad and frustrated for Ethan because he was curious about his dad but his mum had refused to tell him anything about him as she thought this would protect him. However this backfires when Will says something nasty to him which causes the fight.
I do also understand Claire's decisions too but I think it's much harder to protect your children from a hurtful truth if other people know about it.

Ethan finds out some more horrible things as a result of this meeting and I really want to be careful what I say as I don't want to give any spoilers away.
Suffice to say that this book surprised me completely by turning into a direction which I hadn't expected. The subject matter was quite shocking but written so very well and I really liked how the information unfolded.
When we meet Mark I found I was as completely torn as Claire was and this part of the story raised so many questions for me. Simply because when situations happen it's very easy to make a black and white decision about them, however when feelings and love are involved that makes those decisions so much harder to make.
The conflict in this book was brilliant as was the tying in with physics and the universe although I must admit I did have to skim read over a few of the paragraphs as they became quite technical.
The story raises issues about a situation which would be every parents nightmare and it was made even more interesting by the points of view of all involved. Very sad too because of what happens that love and forgiveness are just not enough.

Thank you to Corsair for the Arc which I have reviewed voluntarily.

About the Author

Antonia Hayes, who grew up in Sydney and spent her twenties in Paris, currently lives in London with her husband and son. Relativity is her first novel.

Sincerely
Book Angel x