thesphereofsecrets

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The Sphere of Secrets

Catherine Fisher

Fisher, Catherine. The Sphere of Secrets. Greenwillow books. New York, N.Y. 2005.

The Sphere of Secrets follows an epic tale about a girl with courage, observance, and artistic outlook. It takes place in the year 2063, during the apocalypse. Catherine Fisher has evoked the thoughts of readers for years with her entrancing novels. Her literature often alternates in genre, though always has a heartrending end that leaves her audience breathless and aching for more. The Sphere of Secrets will have readers hooked from the first chapter.

Meteors are falling, volcanoes are erupting and diseases are quickly spreading. Cities are being destroyed and the earth’s inhabitants are burning to death. The raw horror that has come over the people on earth with a narrow amount of time left to live didn’t stop fifteen year old Sophie Johnson from examining the artistry of the end of the world as she knew it. Realizing how limited her time left alive was, she abandoned her abusive family to spend her last days alone, the way she always liked to be. The Sphere of Secrets emphasises largely on the fact that you can find beauty anywhere if you look for it. She admired the meteorites’ individuality, the sunset colors the sky was now always tinted, and the look of peace, sadness and horror planted on the faces of the corpses strung like ragdolls across town.

One day, Sophie found a meteorite just outside the cave she slept in. Something was different about this one -- it was perfectly round and had decorative markings carved on it, as if to tell a story. It was barely warm, so it couldn’t have fallen recently. Nevertheless, she carried it back to her cave to examine it. After an over extended period of time pondering what the strange object was, Sophie placed it in her lap and gave her brain a rest. She thought back on her friends from school. Since the apocalypse, she was hesitant to go out and look for them in fear of running into her parents again.

Suddenly, the silver orb lifted from her lap and the markings all around it began to animate. A familiar face appeared on the front, one that looked just like Sophie’s friend, Maddie, only younger. It was at that point she realized that she was reliving a scene from the past, learning of a secret that her friend kept from her for eight years. Once the display disappeared and the sphere looked normal again, Sophie came to the conclusion that resting the orb in her lap while focusing on any topic will reveal secrets kept from her in the past, according to the thoughts she was experiencing at that moment. Every morning since then, Sophie woke up blessed with the gift to see the next day, not knowing if it would be her last. She spent her time learning from the orb she found, indulging in knowing what she never knew. She decided to call it her Sphere of Secrets.

Finally, as terrified as she was to do it, Sophie mustered up the courage to raise the topic of her parents to Sphere of Secrets in a suspenseful and chilling scene. Of all the secrets kept from her, surely her parents were responsible for an ample amount of them. Her perspective soon shifted after learning the sad truth about her guardians: that they were starved, beaten and neglected when they were children, in ways Sophie never would have imagined until then. She couldn’t help but forgive them, and unhesitantly rushed back home to apologize for leaving them. In the ending chapter, heartbreaking and poetic, Sophie was greeted by the heap of ash and bones that was once the home and family she cryptically loved her entire life.

Though sickeningly literal, The Sphere of Secrets has it’s mythical yet accurate moments, making it one of the few believable apocalyptic-themed stories. Involving drama, realism, and a slice of horror, The Sphere of Secrets’ captivating story is an excellent read for teens.

4 out of 5 stars.

Contributed by C. Corazza.

February 7, 2013.