Blindsided

This was a really interesting book. It really made me think how I would react (probably mostly negatively) if I found out I was slowly going blind just like Natalie. The author did a great job to make it realistic and not too fantastical. Natalie sure went through some extra crazy things that the average blind person would not (events that is), but overall, it was an interesting read even though it was a little slow to get started.

This was all right. It does a good job educating the reader about what blind people have to go through and what they have to learn to get by -- something which I hadn't really thought about before now. However, the story was sometimes a little bit too much like an After School Special, and the foreshadowing was heavy-handed. Like, after a self-defense class it says, "Natalie had no idea how soon she'd have to use those skills." Yeah, Priscilla Cummings, why don't you just stand on a podium and announce that someone is going to attack her?

I would give this book a B. It was worth a read, I guess, but I think her others are better.

I really liked the premise of Blindsided. I honestly can't even imagine how it is to be blind. It must be especially difficult for someone who is used to having vision and then slowly lose it. And then to completely lose it while you're a teenager must make it that much harder to adapt with everything else that goes on in your life. That being said, I think that Blindsided is one of those books where the overall plot doesn't reach the potential that it can.

Blindsided is a very educational book. It tells you sort of what it's like to lose your vision. It tells you...but it doesn't show you. There's very little that happens besides informing you of what blindness is like. In fact, the book just dragged on because very little actually show more happened after you remove the informative part. There was also very little development to the other characters besides Natalie. I understand that she was the main character, but the author should have given the supporting characters more to do.

Blindsided also seemed a bit too preachy for me as in telling "Look! This is what happens when you do these bad things!" and it came off condescending. It seemed like the author had a bit of an agenda. First, there was a minor detail about the students wanting guns to be illegal and adding "Oh, so and so, is blind because someone shot him in the head. With a GUN!". And then there was the issue of the choking game. "Oh!, so and so is blind because he wanted to get high off choking themselves!". But one quote that really got my blood boiling was the one that one student said about her cutting. "Anyway, I'm over it now. The cutting stuff. That was juvenile crap anyway. You know? My little cry for attention". I have friends who have been cutters and I can say that cutting is not "a little juvenile" phase. It's a serious problem. And if cutters are so desperate for attention than why do they HIDE their cuts with long sleeves and bracelets? Sorry. But I call B.S.

So, I found Blindsided to be extremely disappointing. I respect the author for wanting to raise awareness about blindness, but this was 95 percent informative and 5 percent actual novel. Those aren't good odds. And I really don't like being beaten over the head with these "moral" lessons and things that teens ALREADY know is bad for them. show less

Blindsided by Priscilla Cummings is about fourteen-year-old Natalie who is losing her eyesight due to a congenital eye disease. In order to prepare her for a future as a blind person in a sighted world, Natalie’s parents send her to a school for the blind. Natalie’s world is turned upside down when she has to leave her family, her school, and her friends. She has difficulty accepting the changes she must make in her life. Will she hide from the world or will she be brave and find a way to be successful in her new world.

The book would be an easy read for an early teen but the subject matter would be very valuable for any teen. I was very impressed with the author’s detail regarding the adjustments that one has to make to survive show more as a blind person in a sighted world. I as a reader was empathetic to Natalie’s worries and concerns and my thought is that Ms. Cummings tried to present blindness not as a disability but as a life challenge to be conquered. I give this book a rating of 4 not especially for the quality of the plot and the writing but for the insight a teenage reader can gain about the sightless and their world. show less

This story was a fast read and interesting. The main character was believable and the author did a wonderful job catching the emotional and psychological aspects of how a teenager would feel when something so devastating happens. I could just feel what Natalie was going through and could imagine the fear. This book could be scary for some students to read because of the topic of going blind. I liked that the character faced her challenge and after resisting help, started working hard.

Natalie is 14 years old when she visits the doctor and finds out that there is a very good chance that she will go blind within the next two years, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent this from happening. She reluctantly attends a school for the blind in order to start to prepare for her life as a blind person, but she insists on telling everyone that she isn't blind. Her eyesight becomes increasingly less and finally Natalie has to admit that she really is going to lose her sight. How she copes, and what happens to her once she's blind make up the majority of a really interesting, thrilling story.

I enjoyed this one, as I do most stories of this type. Cummings has a good voice, and she wrote pretty well developed characters. Natalie is a realistic character, and I could understand what she must have felt and gone through. I got to watch her grow, accept, and her desire to overcome shine through in the end.
Some of the events in the book could have been foreshadowed a little less and they would have had a greater effect on me, but that doesn't detract too much. I also wish that I could have gotten to know Bree a little better, but as Natalie said it should be for both her and me maybe a mourning of what could have been.
I felt for her when Meredith was struggling with the friendship, and Natalie just wanted her to be there, but show more I am glad that they were able to bond more in the end.
Cummings also hinted at two possible relationship interests, and I wish that would have been explored a little more-- then I could have stayed in this universe a little longer, which I would have been happy about. It was over too soon! show less