Numbers (Numbers, #1)

Numbers (Numbers #1)

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3.42 of 5 stars 3.42  ·  rating details  ·  8,565 ratings  ·  1,483 reviews
Since her mother’s death, fifteen-year-old Jem has kept a secret. When her eyes meet someone else’s, a number pops into her head - the date on which they will die. Knowing that nothing lasts forever, Jem avoids relationships, but when she meets a boy called Spider, and they plan a day out together, her life takes a new twist and turn. Waiting for the London Eye, she sees e...more
Paperback, 285 pages
Published November 8th 2008 by The Chicken House
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Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)
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Ruth Belano
Review before finishing the book:

I am so sorry to my friend who willingly spent her money just to buy me this disappointing book for Christmas. When I read the overview, I was like, "This is going to be a great book!", and so, I spent months craving for this book because I don't have the time to buy and read it, until my oh so good friend gave it to me as Christmas gift. I was so excited to read it!! but...

It.was.horrible. The plot was just so irrelevant to the supposed main idea of the book. I...more
Jennifer
Rachel Ward has written a really dirty and gritty novel here, one that will stick with me for a while...the ending was packed with a very sad punch...and the last few sentences really left me wanting Numbers 2, The Chaos!

So while, I was sure in the beginning this novel was NOT one I would like, thinking I would never finish it, in the end it's a 4 mushroom book for me! A book that reminded me that, while it might take a while, you need to give a book a chance...it just might turn out to be somet...more
Sam
Imagine if every time you looked into someone's eyes you saw the date they would die.

This is the overwhelming burden Jem, our protagonist, has to carry.

Jem has hardly had what you would call a stable childhood; with no dad around and her mother dying when she was seven, Jem has been forced to live with her fair share of foster parents. It doesn't help that her dreaded 'gift' prevents her from getting close to people.

Yet when she lets Spider - a young male and classmate - into her small bubble,...more
Emily May
I was pleasantly suprised by this book, I really liked the story and the exploration of the underclasses and labelling in society. The questions asked about the current justice system in Britain and whether or not the police are simply looking for a likely candidate to blame, are often a question faced in reality. The exploration of racial issues also gives insight into a dark world where the police see a black boy (or girl, but less so) automatically as a criminal or at least a suspect.

The plot...more
Arlene
I've been going back and forth on how I wanted to rate this book, and I'm still not sure it's worth a full three stars, but that's what it's going to get from me at least for right now. I guess I was expecting something more… maybe different from Numbers by Rachel Ward. It wasn't really creepy, dramatic, suspenseful nor intriguing at any grand or significant scale. The story just shifted my suspended reality from here to there with no consistent path or flow, but I never really lost interest, so...more
Amanda
Jem has an unusual gift: when she looks people in the eye, a set of numbers pops into her head. When she was younger, she thought nothing of this. However, when her mother dies of an overdose, the numbers suddenly make sense to 6 year old Jem: the numbers are the month, day, and year on which the person in question will die.

Now 15 years old, Jem has lived a tough life in inner-city London. Shuffled from foster home to foster home and understandably withdrawn and guarded because of her secret, Je...more
Casandra
When I first saw this book I couldn't wait to read it.When I started reading it I was really disappointed.I thought that it will be really interesting with Jem's creepy abilities,but it was just boring.I didn't like the characters(I liked Britney,but she was suspiciously kind) and neither the action.Jem and Spider were just running and hiding and I think that it could be more exciting if someone was following them.Actually they were followed by everyone...
When I reached the middle of the book I...more
Eliora Vespera
http://scholarberry.blogspot.com/

"While I existed, the number existed. I was the number and the number was me."

You'd think that Jem is just the ordinary wallflower, the kind that skips the class and avoid social structures. The kind that would grow up just like her failure mother, a junkie who never cared about her own daughter.

It's true Jem doesn't understand most people, but the real reason why she avoids people (specifically eye contact) is because that she sees a set of numbers. At first whe...more
Sophia (FV)
Jem can see the death date of people by looking into their eyes. As if that’s not a big enough burden to bear, Jem lost her mother to a drug overdose as a young child and is now in the foster care system. She considers herself an outcast and does her best to avoid personal relationships.

When she meets Spider another so-called outcast, Jem gives in to her loneliness and she slowly begins to build a friendship with him. One day when spending a day together in London they witness a terrorist attac...more
Julie H.
Num8ers is the unlikely love story of Jemma (a.k.a. Jem) and Terry (a.k.a. Spider, nicknamed for his constant and ungainly motion). Jemma is a child of the foster care system who at age six found her mother's dead body after a heroin overdose. All her life, she has learned not to form attachments because the people she loves either don't love her in return or they all leave. Jem goes through life making as little eye contact and no physical contact whatsoever with the people around her. This is...more
Ericaj
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Megan
Loved it! Numbers is the story of Jem; a fifteen year old girl who has spent over half her life orphaned and bounced from family to family in the foster care system. Therefore, it almost goes without saying that she is a troubled girl with issues a plenty. In addition to the crap load of, well crap life has piled on her; Jem sees a number whenever she looks someone in the eye. That number is always there, always the same, and it is the date that person will die. As a result, Jem grows up learnin...more
Susana
One and a half stars would be the ideal for this book.
I thought this one, was a big, waste of time and money, mess. The first hundred pages were painful to read. Dialogues in "street talk" is not my idea of a good book. Because the dialogue just doesn't "flow". I don't care if Jem and Spider are fifteen years old, and if that is a way to ilustrate their social background. I understand it, but i don't have to like reading it.
In fact it became painful to do it.
But i'm more than thirty years old....more
Marissa
I'm having a hard time deciding what to rate this book. I have come to the decision to give it a 4.5/5. This book starts out with a girl named Jem, who seems to be an ordinary teenage girl who hangs out under bridges and smokes with others. But Jem can see things that no one else can see: numbers. The numbers represent the date of your death. By just one look in your eyes, Jem can see it. Jem has been seeing these numbers ever since her mom died. She has been shuffled from one foster home to the...more
Donna {Book Passion for Life}
Posted on: http://bookpassionforlife.blogspot.com/

After receiving this book for review I was really looking forward to starting it and after reading a few....not so great books recently, I was praying this wouldn't let me down and guess what? It didn't!

The story follows Jem who has been in the care system ever since she was 7 years old after her mother died of a drug overdose. She's always been able to see numbers on people, numbers she wasn't sure what meant but after her mother dies she final...more
Andrea Vazquez
i choose this book to read because it seemed very interest, this book is fiction. the main character is jem and she is very unique because since her mother die she knew about the numbers she saw on people everytime she saw them on the eyes. she lives with a foster mom her name is karen and she is not happy she describes herself different like she doesn't belong there. in school she has a hard time trying to be with otheres she avoids them because she doesn't wants to see their numbers. one day w...more
Erica - Bonner Springs Library
What if you knew the day that someone, everyone would die? Could you live with that secret?

Jem lives with the burden of knowing everyone's numbers. She's known about the numbers since she was a little girl. In her stroller, she used to tell her mom everyone the numbers but it's not until her mother dies that she knows exactly what the numbers mean. When she looks someone in the eye, she sees the numbers in her head.

Knowing people's numbers, Jem avoids friendships and relationships until she meet...more
FantasyWereld
Deadline is het eerste deel van de Deadline-trilogie en gaat over Jem, een meisje van vijftien jaar. Ze is een buitenstaander: ze hoort nergens bij en wil nergens bij horen. De reden hiervoor is dat Jem al vanaf dat ze het zich kan herinneren een nummer ziet bij ieder die ze aankijkt en op een harde manier heeft moeten leren wat deze nummers betekenen: het zijn sterfdata. Ze ontdekte het op haar zevende, toen haar moeder stierf, en sindsdien, door deze voorkennis die ze heeft bij elke persoon di...more
Jane
Rezension:
Die 15-jährige Jem sieht das Todesdatum eines Menschen in seinen Augen. Das fand sie auf die harte Tour heraus als ihre Mum an einer Überdosis Drogen starb. Seitdem meidet sie Menschen und wandert in verschiedenen Pflegefamilien herum.
Jem ist im allgemeinen ziemlich frech und patzig. Ihre Einstellung gegenüber der Schule und ihrem Leben ist ziemlich mies und sie fühlt sich missverstanden und im Stich gelassen; besonders von ihrer Mutter. Sie weist automatisch jeden ab der ihr näherkomm...more
Sullivan Harris
Ever since Jem was little, she saw the numbers. Everyone has one, their special number. And only Jem knew of their existence. Now 16, Jem, a high school orphan with little to no future, still sees the numbers. She still hasn’t learned to cope with them, seeing them only made her sad. Jem was lonely, her only friend herself, until one day where she meets Spider, a spastic, smelly kid who also had no future. He became what Jem never thought she’d have, a friend. But when the numbers get the best o...more
Trisha
Well, I'm not sure how I should even begin on this excuse of a book.

*Note: what I'm saying is my personal opinion, and I might be extremely harsh on this book.

Firstly, I must comment on the overall "feel" of the book. Before reading "Numbers," I had this almost science-fiction feel, and I thought it was going to be an interesting book about how she uses this superpower for interesting ways.

Instead, I get this crude tone of gangsters and drug addicts talking all the time, and rude, offensive Jem,...more
Anne Mallamo
"There are places where kids like me go. Sad kids, bad kids, bored kids, and lonely kids, kids that are different. Any day of the week, if you know where to look, you'll find us: behind the shops, in the back lanes, under bridges by canals and rivers, round garages, in sheds, on vacant lots. There are thousands of us. If you choose to find us, that is-most people dont. If they do see us, they look away, pretend we're not there. It's easier that way. Don't believe all that crap about giving every...more
Jade Clements
Full Review-http://bedtimeandcandles.blogs...

The story plot and the idea is unique. Yet the book itself was not suspenseful or grand at all, at points it was boring and hard to get through. The flow, well there really wasn't one it dragged and got boring.
I couldn't relate to either of the main characters spider and Jem, they were hard to picture. narrative got bogged down and the conclusion was disappointing.She keeps to herself, doesn’t make eye contact, and has passed through several foster h...more
Alex A
NUM8ERS by Rachel Ward was a great book. It had action, excitement, and kept you guessing throughout the entire thing. The main character is Jem, she has always had this gift that whenever she looks people in the eyes she see’s there numbers which is the day that they are going to die. When she was a child she saw her moms numbers 10102001 and later she saw a man write down on a piece of paper 10102001 or the day her mom died. After that she get’s put into this home with other kids kind of like...more
Riley Barker
I read this book because it was recommended to me, and honestly, I wasn't too impressed with it. It's lacking a lot of elements that make a book great in my opinion. Perhaps if I hadn't read so many amazing books that set my bar higher, this might have been an okay read.

The book is about a 15-year-old girl, Jem, who has the ability to see the date a person will die by looking into their eyes. She meets a boy, Spider, who only has a couple weeks left. After the two of them witness a terrorist att...more
Kasin
Dec 17, 2012 Kasin rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Teenagers
I thought this book was a very, very good novel. It was suspenseful and there was action and even a little bit of romance. The whole time throughout the book was intense and you never knew what was going to happen next. It was very unpredictable, some of the same type of things kept happening but the outcome for those things were always different. There were a couple things that would repeat themselves a couple times though, even continuing into the sequel things that had happened already happen...more
Bean
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Sam
Samantha Flannery
Hr. 7
12-13-12

“I like to find the places where nobody is – where I don’t have to look at anyone, where I don’t have to see their numbers.” That is just one line from Rachel Ward’s book Numbers. The main character who said this line is Jem, she is fifteen and going from foster home to foster home. Now she is in her permanent home but she doesn’t like it. The numbers she is talking about are the numbers she sees when she looks into someone’s eyes; they are their date of death. She...more
Ed
Ward, Rachel. (2010). Num8ers. New York: Scholastic/Chicken House. 327 pp. ISBN 978-0-545-14299-1 (Hard Cover); $17.99.

Jem sees the numbers but desperately wishes it weren't true--who wants to look in people's eyes and see their death dates? Death has always surrounded Jem. When she was a small baby, her heroin addicted mother was on pace to kill herself. Death, for Jem, has always been just a matter of time. However, when Jem, almost against her will, begins falling in love with Spider, she beg...more
Ms. Ramsborg
Numbers
Lexile: 650
I liked the fast-paced action in this book. For example, it starts out with a major explosion at the London Eye and from then on, the main characters (Jem and Spider) are on the run from the police. I wish that the beginning had more focus on Jem and her ability to see people’s death dates because that was very interesting to me. Instead, a lot of the story in the beginning was about Jem and Spider’s relationship, which was okay but at times, it seemed to drag down the action a...more
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Number counts 4 15 01. Mai, 02:17 Uhr  
Was it hard to picture Spider as black (not to be racist)? 21 121 07. März, 07:56 Uhr  
Young Adult Talk: Numbers 10 11 30. Juli, 14:32 Uhr  
Numbers (Numbers, #1)
Num8ers (Library Binding)
Numbers (Numbers, #1)
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Numbers (Numbers, #1)

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More about Rachel Ward...
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