Pitcher certainly has a talent for getting into the mind of her characters - not only Zoe, but the rest of the characters also felt very realistic. Annabel graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English Literature and an ambition to be a children's author.

Zoe's relationships with two brothers, Max and Aaron, play a vital part in this book, but I personally found Zoe's relationship with her family to be the most interesting and touching part of this book - particularly her interaction with her sisters. Stuart Harris, an Oklahoma death row prisonbird and convicted murderer, is Annabel Pitcher’s pen pal. Ketchup Clouds does not tell us this vital piece of information straight away, for Zoe is an unreliable narrator, and instead we must, piece by piece, work out what Zoe has really done. This book was like a pleasant journey, which took a number or wrong turns and finally resulted in toppling off a cliff.

So if you are one of the 97% who loved Ms Nelson’s writing, then I urge you to pick this one up because I think you’ll like it. Siahnite po Kečupových oblakoch, ak chcete objaviť niekoho nového, ak sa chcete schuti zasmiať aj poplakať. S. Harris lives thousands of miles away in Houston, Texas and is one of the only people who might understand Zoe's situation; he knows what it's like to have killed someone he loves. As I have said, it draws you in straight away and doesn't let go until you are finally given some answers.

The name is a metaphor for Zoe’s story, as the ketchup clouds represent the red of her emotions and the clouds symbolize the secrets she is sharing with the world. When Annabel Pitcher's debut novel My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece was published in March last year she really raised the bar for authors of young adult novels and set herself a very very high standard to keep. The novel was shortlisted for numerous awards and was praised by other authors, by the press and by book bloggers. Ketchup Clouds is without question one of the best books I have ever read…"Scroll down to read the rest of this review and all the reader reviews. It becomes infuriating to listen to her life as she keeps making mistakes and being rewarded by being loved and adored by all who know her, and being melodramatic about her own guilt (while, seemingly, to not have learnt much to apply to her current/future behaviour).So this is a one-way epistolary novel, and thus an interesting tease; we are left wondering what an American wife-killer on Death Row might make of handwritten accounts of English teenage shenanigans. Our main character, Zoe, has made a big mistake, committed a crime, and has decided that she can no longer keep it to herself, so she decides to let it all out in a series of letters to Stuart Harris, a murderer on death row. Ketchup Clouds vividly captures the terrifying roller coaster of emotion that envelopes Zoe when she gets caught in a tragic love triangle between two brothers. Ketchup Clouds is a book that had been loitering around my wishlist for while, even though I didn't really know what it was about (ketchup?

In truth, she is hiding a dark secret she dares confess to no one: the previous year she killed someone she loved. He truly cares about Zoe and it is clearly seen by his actions when he sees her or is hurt by her in some way. The images are more real, and my pulse is racing racing racing, and I bet if my heart was attached to one of those hospital things, all the fast thumping would break it. Join now to access our Study Guides library, which offers chapter-by-chapter summaries and comprehensive analysis on more than 5,000 literary works from novels to nonfiction to poetry.

We never hear directly from Stuart but there is quite enough going on in day to day life as well as “Zoe’s” gradual revelation of the events of the past year – May 1st is the first anniversary of the boy’s death. She cannot tell anyone, not even her closest friends, that she is writing a letter to an Texas death row prisoner.