Adam McCormick acababa de cumplir quince años cuando el cadáver fue encontrado en el bosque. Así comienza el otoño que cambiará su vida para siempre. Jamie Marks era un chico muy parecido a Adam, un chico al que nadie prestaba demasiada atención; un chico al que casi nadie iba a echar de menos. Es entonces cuando, por primera vez, Adam siente que tiene un objetivo. Ahora más que nunca, Jamie necesita un amigo. Pero mientras Adam siga aferrado al fantasma de Jamie, su amigo seguirá atado a un mundo al que no pertenece... y los lazos que unen a Adam con la vida serán cada vez más frágiles. Para encontrar su camino de vuelta, Adam debe aprender por sí mismo el verdadero significado de estar vivo.

One for Sorrow was a very powerful book. The book is a ghost story, a coming of age story, and an exploration of the effects of bullying on adolescents. It is more than just that though.

I debated how to try to do it justice in a review; I really cannot since I am not that good of a writer. I decided the best way was to let Mr. Barzak's book literally speak for itself. The following passages touched me, or rather smacked me upside my head, to the point where I needed to write them down:

At one point in the story, the main character Adam is discussing how religion is viewed in his family. He starts by discussing his grandmother who he was close to.
"She was Catholic, but like in this really weird way apparently, which my mom says Catholics are in general because they tend to believe in a lot of magical stuff that she doesn't believe in, which to me isn't the smartest argument in the world because she has no proof there isn't magic in the world, she’s relying on an invisible faith that magic doesn't exist, which is the same thing in my opinion as having faith that it does."

Adam had scathing words for those people who ask how you are but really do not care nor wait for an answer.
"People traded words that meant nothing for more words that meant nothing, and you had to do it if you wanted to be considered a member of the group. . . .People say this stuff automatically, and how can words mean anything if you don’t think about saying them, if you don’t feel them as you are saying them?"

Before her death, Adam's grandmother had warned him that God's finger would point him out for sorrow if he was not careful. Adam, while crashing in a unused church, contemplates the statue of a crucified Jesus and compares Him to His Father.
"The thing I liked about Jesus was that he wasn't like his father. He didn't send storms or plagues or angels to destroy people’s lives or test their loyalty. He just loved everyone." . . ."Jesus didn't seem like the finger-pointing type. I would probably have gotten along with the guy."

The second to the last paragraph in the book contains the following lines:
"Right then I thought, You can live again. You can take the steps towards the finish line without too much fear or sadness. And even if you sometimes fell in the process of getting there, it didn't have to mean you were done for. It didn't have to mean you’d fallen from grace, but that maybe you’d had the grace to get back up again. To go toward it. To cross the finish line without knowing what come after."
They way that Mr. Barzak articulates how someone with depression struggles to just survive each day is incredible. I read those lines and they resonated with me personally. They resonated with where I am as an individual who has struggled with depression for over twenty years. It was almost as if Adam was sharing his struggle with me and in doing so giving me some of his strength.

I really have not done a very good job in expressing how wonderful and strong this book was. Please do not pass it up based on my poor writing. Please read the sections I included of Mr. Barzak's own words and then get the book. You will not be sorry. This is one book that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. ( )

I read this book last year, FINALLY, after taking classes from Chris in college. It is different from what I usually read, but amazing in every way. I really got into the character and the world Chris created, and also really loved seeing my hometown on the pages. Again, not my usual reading style, but I think that fact was one of the reasons that it left such a big impression on me! ( )

Romanzo elegiaco, intenso e malinconico, ma capace di cantare la bellezza della vita. E' la storia di Adam che vive in modo straziante la morte del coetaneo Jamie, il cui corpo esanime viene trovato sui binari della ferrovia, nella noiosa cittadina di provincia nell'Ohio. Malgrado Jamie non ci sia più, il legame con lui diventa ancora più forte, per Adam è presente e due ragazzi dialogano, vagabondano in una dimensione lontana dalla desolante realtà. ( )

When Adam's classmate and almost-friend Jamie is murdered, his ghost comes to Adam for comfort and acknowledgement. Adam too needs comfort, as his family breaks apart and he slides from his high-school niche of nobody-much to outcast status. Even though Jamie's ghost-world is cold and dangerous, with skinless men lurking by the gates, it is a place where Adam seems to have purpose, and for a time living companionship with the girl who found Jamie's body and is also haunted by him.
One for Sorrow has several themes & tropes in common with Tamsin, by Peter Beagle - the ghosts' memories are fragmentary and easily lost, and trying to recall traumatic memories breaks them apart; the living teens are faced with losing their ghost friends by helping them move on - but Tamsin is a fairly conventional mystery at its heart, and Barzak never attempts to solve Jamie's murder, which I liked. It did feel like a first novel, with the story wandering about rather once Adam runs away from home, and the spunky black girl who befriends him being, um, kind of Magical Negro, and Adam's family getting their act together perhaps a little too much while he's hiding out. Still and all, this was a memorable and original story.