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    Extraordinary Means
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    Extraordinary Means
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    Extraordinary Means
    Ebook316 pages4 hours

    Extraordinary Means

    By Robyn Schneider

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    John Green's The Fault in Our Stars meets Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park in this darkly funny novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Beginning of Everything.

    Up until his diagnosis, Lane lived a fairly predictable life. But when he finds himself at a tuberculosis sanatorium called Latham House, he discovers an insular world with paradoxical rules, med sensors, and an eccentric yet utterly compelling confidante named Sadie—and life as Lane knows it will never be the same.

    Robyn Schneider's Extraordinary Means is a heart-wrenching yet ultimately hopeful story about the miracles of first love and second chances.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 26, 2015
    ISBN9780062217189
    Author

    Robyn Schneider

    Robyn Schneider is the bestselling author of The Beginning of Everything, Extraordinary Means, and Invisible Ghosts, which have earned numerous starred reviews, appeared on many state reading lists, and been published in over a dozen countries. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied creative writing, and the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where she earned a master of bioethics. She lives in Los Angeles, California, but also on the internet. You can find her at www.robynschneider.com.

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    Reviews for Extraordinary Means

    4/5

    130 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I listened to this novel because it was part of Audiobook Sync this summer; it wasn’t what I expected.It’s been a long time since a disease has created fear and an urgency for scientists to find a cure and a vaccine. In this novel, tuberculosis is back--completely resistant to medicine. Those who show symptoms are separated from society into medical asylums, basically. Lane had a life he liked. He did A LOT of homework and took challenging classes because he looked forward to be accepted into a top tier college. He, however, contracts drug-resistant TB and ends up at Latham house, where some get well enough to return to their lives and others don’t make it. On his first day he sees a group of kids coming out of the forest. It’s a group of misfits, kids who try to find more excitement in this place of rest; one of these is Sadie, a girl he knew from camp a few years ago. Lane narrates his story, telling us about his ambition. He finds the schedule ridiculous; he doesn’t need to waste his time resting. He pushes himself to continue with all of his AP homework. He finds this misfit group interesting because they aren’t doing as prescribed on the schedule. Sadie has been at Latham house for about 18 months. She stays just sick enough to stay but well enough to not be in the hospital part. She figures she’ll tip one way or the other eventually. When she first spots Lane, she remembers camp and her anger as to what happened back then. This anger keeps her from wanting to invite him in with her group. They really can’t avoid each other and Lane seems to fit in with the group. Once they discuss camp, they are free to become friends, maybe even more. Sadie narrates her part of the story, telling us about her choices and how she chooses to live at Latham.Life at Latham is one to get healthy. Classes require no homework and no one fails because stress isn’t good for the body. It truly is pretty successful at helping teens get better. Saide, Lane, and their friends just need to make life more interesting. Afterall, if they do die, they need to actually live now. All they can hope for is a cure. The end of the novel deals with the fear that pervades society; the choices the friends make show that there are consequences to all of their decisions.Those of you who like realistic fiction will like this novel. It’ll pull on your heartstrings and make you think about what’s truly important in life. You might need a kleenex because not every character you meet makes it by the end.
    • 5/5
      Very good read, and an interesting take to make the main character someone clever and able, from a comfortable background, etc. - different to the usual sink estate character! Enjoyed how assumptions get pulled apart and their consequences, how we treat the sick and the impact of that, and a great many other aspects of the story. Particularly taken with the idea that living and dying are different descriptions for the same thing!
    • 4/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: A touching love story, which made me recount my own blessings.Opening Sentence: My first night at Latham House, I lay awake in my narrow, gabled room in Cottage 6 wondering how many had people died in it.The Review:Given the hype around The Fault in Our Stars, I think everyone that reads Extraordinary Means will end up comparing the two. Both have teenagers suffering from a potentially terminal illness who fall in love, and both include heartbreak and death. Now that we’ve gone over the similarities I can happily move on to what sets EM apart.The story is set in the future, but not so far forward that Facebook and mobile phones are non-existent. It’s a time after Ebola when a rare kind of TB plagues the world; total drug resistant TB. The problem is that the disease is contagious and there’s no cure, so people are quarantined once they’ve caught it. The story is told from both Lane’s and Sadie’s perspectives; two teenagers with this disease residing in Latham, one of these sanatoriums.Most books on illnesses tell you how much the individual has lost, whereas in EM we get to see a different take on suffering and for some, Latham is a new start. Lane spent all his life studying and preparing to be lead a perfect life by getting into Stanford but in doing so he’s never allowed himself to have any fun. It’s only when he’s forced to put aside his studies to focus on getting better that he realises what he’s missed out on.It occurred to me then how much I’d missed. I’d always told myself that there was plenty of time to goof around later, after I’d gotten into Stanford. But if the past month had taught me anything, it was that the life you plan isn’t the life that happens to you.The kids at Latham are cut off from the real world so hacking extra time on the internet or sneaking into the nearest town’s Starbucks is a major adventure, which was unusual but fun to read. Lane befriends one of the most daring groups, mainly because of his piquing interest in Sadie, and ironically learns how to have the best time of his life.The deaths at Latham highlighted everyone’s underlying fear. The small rebellious antics this group of friends perform are like a mask over reality; no one knows who will be next. Everyone in Latham has dreams and the hard truth is that it’s unlikely any of those will be fulfilled, so instead they try to make the best use of the time they have, trying to enjoy their lives instead of counting down the time left.“Here’s a secret,” I said. “There’s a difference between being dead and dying. We’re all dying. Some of us die for ninety years, and some of us die for nineteen. But each morning everyone on this planet wakes up one day closer to their death. Everyone. So living and dying are actually different words for the same thing, if you think about it.”Although I found it to be an intense and thought provoking read, there was a fair amount of humour and lightness, at least in the first half of the book. The main characters were well developed, and I particularly liked Sadie’s carefree and daring personality. Once Lane loosened up, he became more interesting too! In fact, their entire group was made of misfits, kids who probably would never have become friends at a normal school, had their lives panned out differently. I liked the odd but close mix of friends who relied on each other like family.What I didn’t like was the ending. I won’t reveal any spoilers but after catching a terminal disease that destroys their childhood and knowing that even if they do survive they will never be treated the same again, you would think they could be given an inkling of a happier ending?? I understand that it was probably more realistic this way but given the book is aimed at young adults, after all the grimness it would have been nice to end on a semi-happy note. Although now that I look back on it, there was a happy note, but not the one I was hoping for.Notable Scene:But the truth was, most of us weren’t in high school yearbooks. We were the ones who’d faded away, who hadn’t come back in the fall. Who might never come back. Because TB wasn’t like cancer, something to be battled while friends and family sat by your bedside, saying how brave you were. No one held our hands; they held their breath. We were sent away to places like Latham to protect everyone else, because it was better for them.Additional Notable Scene:“Lane,” she said after a while.“Hmmm?”“I’m so sorry. I always felt like there was something off about me, and now I know. I’m broken.”It wrecked me all over again to hear her say that.“You’re not broken.”“Then how come I can’t be fixed?” she asked, shaking as she held back tears. “If I’m not broken, how come no one can fix me?”FTC Advisory: Katherine Tegen Books/HarperTeen provided me with a copy of Extraordinary Means. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 4/5
      3.5 (liked it a lot) I wanted to read Extraordinary Means because the subject of teens dealing with illnesses always catches my eye. The idea of that diseases can resurface and be resistant to treatment is a nightmare but one that I would love to see explored in a story. The two main characters Lane and Sadie actually knew each other before they ended up in Latham House, a place for teens to be quarantined until they are no longer contagious or until they pass. But there is a huge misunderstanding between the two. They met at a camp in middle school and Sadie has a different idea of who Lane is because of some events that we find out hurt her pretty badly. I liked them both and knew that there was plenty of room for character development. Lane is smart and very driven, he has goals for Stanford and finding out he was sick and then getting off track because the academics at Latham House are nothing like what he was used to. Sadie is more introverted because she was picked on some in middle school. She lets a few people in and they are all artists or dreamers, like her. She loves to photograph and play with photoshop, and always has a project going on. The medical aspect was pretty scary. They were resistant to treatment that used to work, but are away from normal society because it is contagious. They wear sensors that help the medical staff to monitor them with the least amount of contact possible. While some end up no longer contagious and sent home, there are also the kids that get really ill, and some who die. It is pretty sad how it becomes almost commonplace when they are locked out of their dorms because they are cleaning out a room of a classmate who passed. I liked the secondary characters as well, especially Nick, Charlie and Marina. They all became a tight circle of friends. They complemented Sadie and Lane well and made a good dynamic. Maybe they never would have been friends outside of Latham but that is one of the themes of the book. That Latham is a step back from the real world, helping a lot of teens to get perspective and to slow down their lives. Lane realized a lot about his ambition and how much he was rushing through his life, always trying to get to the next step, and never really living in the moment. One thing that I expected in some ways, but wished that it didn't happen the way it did was the ending. When I heard the comparisons to other novels I knew with almost certainty what would happen, I just hoped it would have just been a secondary instead of that plus a main. But it was foreshadowed a lot and although I wish more for the hea rather than how it played out, I can understand why. Bottom Line: Great premise and characters, wish differently for ending.
    • 4/5
      Lane has put himself on the fast track during his high school career -- AP, power electives, creating clubs that will look good on his Stanford application. That life is rudely interrupted when he goes to a most exclusive private school, one where homework is frowned upon, eating as much as possible is encouraged and getting tired or excited is the last thing that should happen.The school is only for teens with a highly contagious form of TB. They are prisoners, waiting to see if they survive or die.Lane rejects that. He continues to see his sojourn at the bucolic setting as an enforced holding pattern and continues to exert himself in studies. Meanwhile, at the table of kids who appear to shine over the rest, he recognizes a girl from summer camp a few years ago.Sadie recognizes Lane as well, and she doesn’t want anything to do with the boy who caused her greatest humiliation. That's especially true now that she has come into her own. She is no longer one of the awkward kids, the kids who don’t fit in. She is thriving, finding ways to break the rules and stand up to authority.In a story that outdoes The Fault in Our Stars for strong character voice, drama and humor that do not feel manipulative, Extraordinary Means is a most welcome novel for lovers of contemporary YA fiction.
    • 5/5
      lane meets Sadie at a sanitorium for teens with a drug- resistant form of tuberculosis. They knew of each other from a summer at camp in middle school and now work through misunderstandings of the past to come to the point of seeing how wonderful each other really is. As they fall in love, Lane learns the hard way to put striving for the best scores in college test exams on hold and live each moment to the fullest instead. Similar to John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, this well-written novel will tug at the heartstrings of all who read it. 324 pages. Recommended for grades 8 & up.
    • 1/5
      URGH.

      I loved this author's first book. Boarding school stories are my jam. I liked Looking for Alaska and loved The Fault in Our Stars. This should have been an easy win for me. And, up until the last hundred or so pages, it really was.

      I love Schneider's writing - her prose is great. And I was so excited to get something that sounded like a mix between LfA and TFioS, but with the female protagonist's point of view actually represented in the novel. But everything that is built up in the first two hundred pages is completely shat on in the last one hundred.
    • 2/5
      Aw, how cute. /sarcasmThis author is obviously a John Green fan and decided to write Looking for Alaska/The Fault in Our Stars mashup fanfiction...and it fell so horrifically flat of that goal.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this book which alternated POV chapters. I definitely preferred the male voice to the female voice. It was an interesting concept, and it held my interest (often I get distracted with audiobooks). I felt the characters were well developed and made me want to root for them. Although most of the characters were 17, there was nothing I would consider inappropriate for my 12 or 14-year old readers. A little drinking and a few kisses. But fairly tame for how YA can be.
    • 5/5
      This book is one of the few books that made me cry. The character development was so amazing that I felt like a part of them. Maybe that's how this book got me, or it just was the way this author writes. Either way, this book is FANTASTIC!!!!
    • 5/5
      Up until his diagnosis, Lane lived a fairly predictable life. But when he finds himself at a tuberculosis sanatorium called Latham House, he discovers an insular world with paradoxical rules, med sensors, and an eccentric yet utterly compelling confidante named Sadie - and life as Lane knows it will never be the same.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed reading this book. It is a story about love, friendship, and self discovery. It's a good read. Thumbs up!!
    • 3/5
      This book was certainly similar to "The Fault in our Stars" with both protagonists dying (this time fromTB) but I think John Green did a better job. Told from alternating points of view, I enjoyed Sadie's witty dialogue and Lane's conservative manner, but their romance never felt real. Also, while the ending was predictable it lacked emotion. I was hoping to be a sobbing mess by the last page - I haven't had a good cry in quite a while.