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    Remembering Raquel
    Remembering Raquel
    Remembering Raquel
    Ebook96 pages1 hour

    Remembering Raquel

    By Vivian Vande Velde

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Fifteen-year-old Raquel Falcone is, as one of her classmates puts it, the kind of kid who has a tendency to be invisible. That is until the night she's hit by a car and killed while walking home from the movies.
        
    In brief, moving chapters, we hear about Raquel from her classmates, her best friend, her family--and the woman who was driving the car that struck her.
         
    The loss of this seemingly invisible girl deeply affects her entire community, proving just how interconnected and similar we all really are.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateNov 1, 2007
    ISBN9780547351803
    Remembering Raquel
    Author

    Vivian Vande Velde

    Vivian Vande Velde has written many books for teen and middle grade readers, including Heir Apparent, User Unfriendly, All Hallow's Eve: 13 Stories, Three Good Deeds, Now You See It ..., and the Edgar Award–winning Never Trust a Dead Man. She lives in Rochester, New York. Visit her website at www.vivianvandevelde.com.

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    Reviews for Remembering Raquel

    3.5/5

    59 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book is a quick read, but extremely thought-provoking. I didn't expect it to be as interesting as it was. I think this book might be a good book for middle school girls to read.
    • 4/5
      Short, but terrific.I love Vivian Vande Velde's writing.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful book about a girl who died and hoew she is remembered.
    • 4/5
      This was an original premise, and cleverly done. The only similar story I can think of is After the Death of Anna Gonzales by Terri Fields. In spite of the topic I did not find Remembering Raquel depressing or melodramatic. A wide variety of characters had their say, and I found all the reactions realistic and compelling. A good, solid, beef and barley sort of book.
    • 4/5
      "Certain kids have a tendency to be invisible." Raquel is that kind of kid, the kind of girl who no one notices. Despite being overweight, Raquel is not the kind of girl who anyone notices. So perhaps it's not too surprising that when Raquel's teacher has to make the worst possible announcement --- that Raquel has been struck by a car and killed. I find that most people who talked in the book were either nice to her, mean to her, or loved her before she died. I think her father and her best friend loved her the most. I was a sad book, but I liked it.
    • 4/5
      The tag line on the back of the cover reads, “How would you be remembered?”Raquel, a ninth grader at Quail Run High School, has just died unexpectedly. Each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective. Through the variety of characters that talk about Raquel (or themselves) the reader gets a glimpse of what it must have been like for a slightly unattractive fourteen-year-old girl who was invisible to the rest of the student body.Remembering Raquel by Vivian Vande Velde was an enjoyable read because it illustrates how we touch other people’s lives without ever knowing it. Raquel felt invisible at school, yet after she dies people gather to talk about the impact she made on their lives, which leaves the reader wondering – how would I be remembered?
    • 4/5
      This will be a page turner for middle school girls, short and well written, about an unpopular overweight girl who is hit by a car and killed. The book has multiple narrators, opening the reader's eyes as to how all the character's feel and react to the incident and to the girl before her death.
    • 2/5
      I would have given it three stars because like most VVV books, this book was more interesting in concept than in execution, but the end was just too depressing. I think she tried to end with a little bit of hope, but I was mostly left angry and sad by the unnecessary melodrama.
    • 5/5
      Vivian Vande Velde is best known for her award-winning science-fiction and fantasy novels. This story about a teenager who is killed in an automobile accident as told through the eyes of those who knew her, is no fantasy. Vande Velde realistically captures the thoughts and feelings of the characters, including the driver of the car that struck and killed Raquel. Remembering Raquel illustrates the randomness of life and how little we really know about some of the people around us.Raquel Falcone is killed when she steps off a curb and is struck by a car. In short, powerful chapters, she is remembered by family, friends, classmates, and those who witnessed the accident. Through the memories of others and entries in her diary, readers get to know this seemingly invisible girl.

    Book preview

    Remembering Raquel - Vivian Vande Velde

    Vanessa Weiss, Classmate

    It's amazing how much dying can do for a girl's popularity.

    I mean, I'm sitting here in the funeral parlor watching Erin McCall and my other classmates standing around Raquel Falcone's dad, each one of them acting like Raquel's best friend. I don't know if Erin's just doing her usual center-of-attention thing, or if she's actually trying to make Mr. Falcone feel better. That's what you do for a dead person's family—tell them she'll be missed even if you never once had a nice word for her or about her.

    I know what I'm talking about: I was there in homeroom when Mrs. Bellanca broke the news. She told us all to sit down, and I have to believe that was at least partly so she could see where the empty desk was—I don't think she was exactly sure which one to connect Raquel's name to. Certain kids have a tendency to be invisible.

    I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, Mrs. Bellanca said.

    Her plan to prepare us did the opposite. I couldn't have been the only one who suspected that another standardized test was about to be announced. Or an assembly, because the administration had decided that the first springlike day of the year was a good time to talk to us about the evils of drugs, alcohol, bullying, or sex. Or maybe, since it was a nice day, there was going to be a fire drill; a certain number are required each semester, but the principals in upstate New York generally try to schedule them for days without snow and ice rather than run the risk of personal-injury lawsuits.

    A little chatter of speculation started as people tried to guess what the bad news could be.

    Mrs. Bellanca rapped her knuckles against the desk to get our attention—one step up from middle school, where they have this little rhythmic handclap thing they do to get the students to quiet down.

    I'm sorry to have to tell you, Mrs. Bellanca said, that the school has suffered a loss. Which still could have been something minor. She might have meant that one of the teachers was going on maternity leave—or one of the students. (Though usually there's no official word on those situations.) But then she finally came out and said it: Raquel Falcone was killed in a car accident last night.

    People glanced around. Even after seven months of classes together, they had to look to see who was missing, who Mrs. Bellanca meant.

    I knew immediately. Not that Raquel was a particular friend of mine or anything. I sit behind her in homeroom, so I'd already noticed she wasn't there, because I could see Mrs. Bellanca without having to crane around Raquel's bulk.

    My first thought, on hearing that Raquel was dead, was: Oh, crap. That makes me the class fat girl.

    Which lets you know—just in case there was any doubt—exactly how nice I am.

    So now, all those kids who couldn't have been bothered to talk to Raquel when she was alive are leaving flowers at the little impromptu shrine at the street corner where the car hit her. They're taking up a collection to buy a Raquel Falcone memorial park bench to put on the school's front lawn. And they've even started a letter-writing campaign to get the speed limit lowered on that stretch of Poscover Road to prevent further accidents—even though nobody's 100 percent sure what happened. Why should not knowing what happened stop anybody from commenting ... or crusading?

    They say she was leaving a movie, talking and laughing. Maybe Raquel stepped off the curb without watching what she was doing.

    Maybe someone jostled her—which leads to two more questions: Was it accidental? Or intentional?

    Or maybe Raquel knew exactly what she was doing when she stepped in front of that car. Maybe she'd had enough of being nobody's particular friend, of being that fat girl in ninth grade.

    A fast, fatal step to popularity is a possibility to keep in mind.

    But meanwhile, I'm happy to note that Lindsay Lapjani might actually look wider than I do. She says she's not fat—it's a cultural thing. And I'm certainly not going to be insensitive enough to bad-mouth anyone's culture.

    Angela Bellanca, Teacher

    All those years of schooling. All those years of paying off the loans for that schooling. Years that stretched out because teachers are notoriously underpaid.

    As opposed, for example, to my sister Emily, who went into business communications—whatever, exactly, that means.

    Never mind, I know what it means. It means she has beautiful clothes because she doesn't have to be on her feet all day in a building where, in the winter, the heat doesn't quite make it to the third floor; and, in the summer, there is no air-conditioning because the voters turned down the building-improvement bond, figuring there aren't many days that we'd need it. Try standing in front of thirty bored ninth graders on a June afternoon and then tell me you don't need air-conditioning. And, yes, my shoes look orthopedic. That's because they are orthopedic. The girls make snide remarks about them based on what styles they're wearing. The boys are always trying to look down my neckline or up my skirt. And they're all eyeballing the size of my butt if I'm wearing pants. As far as hair, Emily gets hers done every week to maintain what she calls that nice professional look. For a teacher, professional means not a ponytail. Except on those days when we really need that air-conditioning—then a ponytail is fine.

    Not that I'm complaining: I didn't fall into being a teacher; I chose it as my career. I wanted to make a difference, and usually I don't compare myself to Emily. Except when she sits us down in front of the computer at some family function and makes us check out the latest digital photo album of the latest wonderful vacation she and her husband have taken. Meanwhile, my

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