If you are interested in stories about people with extraordinary powers, in a science-fiction way, you will really enjoy reading this book. Numbers takes you into the world of a girl called Jem, you get to see the way she lives her life and interacts with people with her power of seeing numbers. These numbers are a date, the date of the person’s death. One could describe such ability as a gift, but for Jem it is seen as a burden. The numbers connect with her every time she looks someone in their eyes.
Rachel Ward, the author, does a great job in keeping the reader interested by creating a storyline that is one of the most interesting and enticing stories I’ve ever read. Rachel Ward really find a way to take you into Jems’ word one a first-hand basis. She uses descriptive phrases that is easily accessible to a teenage reader, and that’s just one of her many positive ways she used in the book to attract teenage readers. The overall idea of the book is a high concept; it takes an unexpected and interesting route. Throughout the story, it was good to see how Jem let go of her fear of socializing with people, as her relationship with Spider - a fellow outcast at her school – grew, as a reader I felt very excited to see her make progress in her life. She had overcome a fear that she has had all of her life, and this showed and represented growth in a person’s life, and how people seem to break out of the “shell” once they start getting close to someone. Spider definitely had a big part to play in the story because of how he was able to make progress in a social aspect with himself and Jem. This story wouldn’t have happened if not for Spider. Although there are many aspects to this story, you definitely see how the author remains constant to keeping the story about Jem and Spider. Rachel Ward makes sure that no matter how many different scenarios are going on; it all leads to an ending that has a major part to play in the main storyline.
Although the plot was great, I couldn’t help but notice some of it was very predictable. It would have been a much easier and better read if the author were to not make some of the inner plots as predictable as they were. The ending as sad, but if you paid attention while reading the book, you would have known it would be like that. It was overall a very good book, it was very interesting, and I would recommend it to anyone.