Wait Until Twilight by Sang Pak

ISBN-13: 9780061732959
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: August 2009
240 pgs

Reading Wait Until Twilight is totally a new experience for me. In the beginning, I was very intrigued by the premise. It is about a sixteen-year-old, Samuel, who is coping with the death of her mother after she died of a brain tumor. However, this story does not focus on his dealing of her death, it is more of a coming-of-age story after he encountered something horrific and unimaginable that made him see things differently and more clearly as compared to other boys his age.

Samuel's father owns a shop and his brother, Jill is attending college in a nearby town. Samuel is not close with his family, but that does not really bother him. His so-called peaceful life is interrupted when he has to think of ideas for his school project and he found three deformed babies in his neighbour's house. Before this, he had heard of rumours on the babies but this is the first time that he actually believed in them. Thereafter, the image of the deformed babies began to haunt him in his waking moments as well as in his dreams and he knows he has to see them again.

The triplets' mother, Mrs Greenan, however does not welcome him and thinks he is nothing but a troublemaker. Besides the triplets, Mrs Greenan also has an older son, Daryl, but it seems there is something not right about him. Samuel is troubled by his violent and abusive behaviour and this is where the core of the story really is. You see, Samuel is battling with himself for as much as he find the triplets horrifying, however there is an emotion in him that makes him want to save them. This dilemma he faces will question about his humanity and how the decision he made in the end will affect his outlook on life thereafter.

In the beginning, I did not know what to expect when I started reading this story. Reading the part about the deformed triplets left me in chills because like Samuel, I was totally unprepared for it. Honestly I was a little scared of them, but yet I also felt sorry for them. This book was not an easy read and there were times I had to set it aside before picking it up again. Though the story may sound a little dark, but I like the idea of having a young protagonist who is battling with his inner self, especially on a sensitive topic like this.

I want to thank the author and his publicist for sending this book to me for review.

Other reviews:
Booking Mama
Everything Distils Into Reading
The Book Zombie
Violet Crush
(Let me know if I missed yours.)