Children are taught to trust their parents, but what happens in a family when the parent cannot be trusted? This question is played out in When We Were Romans. Kneale writes this story from the point of view of nine year old Lawrence with a tumultuous family life, complete with spelling errors and all the confusion of a young child lacking enough knowledge to understand his situation. As others have mentioned, the reader knows the likely story development long before the nine year old narrator (personally I found the ending to be utterly predictable), but this makes the story all the more engrossing. The important part of this novel is not any individual event, but the perception of and reaction to the events by Lawrence. Overall, I enjoyed this book and would recommend id. I found some parts to be slow, but the authentic voice and experiences of Lawrence kept it moving. ( )

The problem with writing a novel entirely from the perspective of a nine-year-old boy, is that children of that age have no deep insights, wider perspectives, or analytical abilities. By the end of this, I was screaming for an adult viewpoint, as the "development" of the story was (by definition) going nowhere fast. It didn't help that Lawrence is an often unpleasantly manipulative child, and it is not until the - admittedly exciting and unexpected - climax that we discover clues as to why this is so (and I won't give away the ending, of course).

In other respects the story succeeds - Lawrence's boyish obsessions (cosmology, Roman Emperors, etc) make entertaining asides; his penchant for finding which "animal" any adult is most represented by, charms; and his sister Jemima is the most perfectly drawn toddler I've seen in literature : totally self-centred, reactive, living entirely "in the moment", full of petty innocence.

A mild irritation is the spelling - Lawrence is actually quite a good speller for his age and stumbles at all the likely places, though getting some difficult words right. So far, so good. Why then, is he so utterly hopeless with all place names? Even Ikea, whose name he must have seen in giant letters on the store front, he gets wildly wrong. This is an inconsistency that constantly nagged throughout my reading.

I wanted so hard to like this book more than I did. But we readers were trapped in a childishly paranoid and manipulative mind, and by the end, I was heartily glad to be rid of Lawrence. ( )

This was an easy read and interesting, although I'm not sure I really enjoyed it. The story is told from the perspective of a nine-year old boy with all the focus and interests one would expect from this age. His friends, his hamster, his toys and his relationships with his family. Occasionally we are treated to excerpts of his learning about Space and Roman history. It is much more than that, tho, the reader finds, as the story unfolds. At first I was amused at the perspective, and I am impressed with the author's ability to stay 'in character' throughout. Some would be bothered by the mis-spellings and grammatical errors but it is what you would expect from inside the mind of a 9-yr old. There were definitely times I felt that Lawrence was mature for his age, like when he is trying his best to help his mother even when he's not sure what it is that she needs, and other times when I felt he was simply acting out by his deliberate misbehaviour. The interaction between him and his sister was completely believable. There were parts that puzzled me and the ending was not at all expected but did make everything clearer and more understandable. I don't like to give away an ending, so I won't, but I do feel this book is worth reading. It will draw you in. ( )

When We Were Romans is the story of Lawrence, a nine-year-old boy from England, as told by Lawrence himself. As the story begins, Lawrence, his younger sister Jemima, and their mother have just returned from a triumphant trip to a distant grocery store where they were forced to go because Lawrence's mother, Hannah, is certain that her ex-husband and the children's father is stalking them with evil intent. Even a trip to the grocery store without any unfortunate happenings is cause for celebration. Still, though, Hannah is distraught that her ex is lurking around every corner turning the neighbors against her and her children and lying in wait to do them some unspeakable harm. In an effort to escape this lingering terror, she packs up the two kids and shuttles them off to Rome, the last place she remembers being happy where the small family moves from place to place to stay with Hannah's old friends.

Lawrence renders the tale of their trip to Rome in possibly the most authentic nine-year-old voice ever executed by a grown man. At the start, it's a bit of a struggle to get used to, seeing as Lawrence's spelling and punctuation errors are included. Dialogue isn't separated out into the lines but included in the larger paragraphs along with many of Lawrence's thoughts which are marked as quotes. Then, however, something happens and you might well find you've been swept away by this short novel.

Lawrence's quirks and idiosyncrasies with spelling breathe as much life into this novel as does the story itself. His narration is full of the petty concerns of a nine-year-old such as his irritation with his little sister, his obsessive desire to acquire an army of Roman soldiers despite the fact that his mother apparently has no money, and his conviction that the young son of one of his mother's friends is going to steal his hamster in throw him in the trash. More significant, however, is that the narration is also fraught with the keen perception that children have of even those things that should be beyond their understanding. Lawrence knows when his mother is getting a bit too close to one of her old friends, he picks up on the subtle change between his mother and her best friend when the friend starts to doubt the truth of Hannah's stories, and he even knows, though he hesitates to admit it, that there is something a bit askew about this whole trip to Rome.

So the Romens never did say that it was strange to do a trial for a dead body, in fact they didn't say anything at all. But after, when they all went home to their houses, when they sat down and ate their dinner and it was really quiet, so they could hear their knives go "clink clink" and the clock go "tick tock" then I think they all knew.

As with other well-liked books such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the unique narrator of When We Were Romans allows Kneale to add many layers to the story that couldn't exist if we were given a "typical" narrator. The story as filtered though Lawrence's eyes is one of excitement, mystery, and horror which leaves it to us to uncover just what lurks beneath the surface of seemingly ordinary events. Additionally, Kneale cleverly intersperses the real-time happenings with Lawrence's recounting of the things he's been reading, alternately tidbits about space for his school report and his reading from his Hideous History books about Popes and Caesars. These reveal yet more about Lawrence's personality and his uncannily perceptive way of thinking while at the same time proving all too relevant to the things that are happening to Lawrence and his family.

There is lots of dust by the event horizon, its like a big disk, it goes round faster and faster until it falls in, so it is like water going down the plug hole. And d'you know just because its about to fall down the dust does a funny thing, it spits out lots of rays, they are X rays and radio waves, scientists can see them through their teliscopes, and they are awful actually. It is like the poor dust is screeming, its saying "oh no I'm getting sucked into this black hole, I will never come back, nobody will ever see me again, I will get squoshed flat, this is terrible" its like it is saying "help me."

Honestly, this is a great book that can't be captured by any review. It's short and it's sweet and even a bit sad, and it's also very smart and totally believable. Another of my favorite reads of the year. ( )

A work reminiscent of "Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" or "Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close" in the voice of the young narrator. An engaging, yet eerie novel as the mother's mental illness begins to more completely invade the storyline. ( )