Are We There Yet?

by David Levithan

Book Overview

Sixteen-year-old Elijah is completely mellow and his 23-year-old brother Danny is completely not, so it's no wonder they can barely tolerate one another. So what better way to repair their broken... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375839569
• ISBN13: 9780375839566
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.58 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Brothers

Sixteen-year-old Elijah Silver and his brother Danny Silver are complete opposites. Elijah is a dreamer and believes Danny is too serious. Danny enjoys his work and believes Elijah does not take life seriously. It's no surprise that Elijah and Danny do not get along well. In order to help mend their relationship, their parents trick them into going to an all-expenses paid trip to Italy. How will two brothers who don't get along spend so much time with each? At first, Danny would sleep in the hotel room, while Elijah would explore Italy. Then, Elijah meets Julia, a twenty-year-old from Toronto. Then, Julia makes a move towards Danny. This is the first novel I've read by David Levithan, and it will certainly not be the last. To be honest, at first, I was not sure if I would like Are We There Yet? I was not used to reading from third-person point of view. However, the more I read, the more I realized that it worked. In fact, it really worked. There is no way I could like the novel as much as I do right now if it was written in first person. One thing I enjoyed about Are We There Yet? was how Levithan showed the brothers' relationship with each other. I feel like he really captured what it's like to be brothers in writing. While I was reading the novel, I couldn't help but wonder if Levithan had any brothers. I will do some research later. :) (edit:// I looked, and yes, he does have a brother.) Another thing I liked about Levithan's writing was how he delved into Danny's and Elijah's minds. It did not feel like Levithan was writing about how they felt. It felt like he knew, like he was reading their minds. That's not something most writers do.

Are We There Yet?

This is the kind of book that makes me want to do something extremely daring and meaningful. Like jumping off something or swimming in my pool with my clothes on (which is what I did...)This book is extremely well written and a poignant,beautiful look at relationships. Danny and Elijah are well developed characters and watching their relationship unfold and grow is lovely. The writer, David Levithan, does a beautiful job using the setting, Italy, to ground the story and provide real-life context. The personal adventures both brothers go on provide a well-written and heartfelt look at insecurities and problems they have. The most basic area of the plot is perdictable, but the plot is not what makes this story special. It's the characters and the development of thier relationship. A wonderful and quick read!

A novel that explores the dynamic between brothers

Elijah and Danny are brothers. Elijah is the dreamy brother, who loves to hang out with his friends at boarding school and has endless conversations with strangers. Danny is the elder brother --- hardworking, serious, and completely devoted to his first job in advertising. Elijah thinks of Danny as being a sellout, a phony, and a liar. Danny thinks of Elijah as being a penniless, pothead fallback, with no sense of reality. Both brothers have forgotten the affection they once had for each other. In an attempt to get the two siblings to communicate again, their parents send them on a tour of Italy. An impressionistic blend of novel, travelogue and poetry, ARE WE THERE YET? is about the brothers' travels through Venice, Florence and Rome. Travel, particularly in a foreign country, has a disorienting quality that makes things seem simultaneously immediate and very faraway. David Levithan captures this paradox, as well as the strange coincidences and people the two brothers encounter along the way. He covers the major sites of each city, along with minor sites important to each character. Notably, Levithan writes about the remnants of once-thriving Jewish communities in each city. When the brothers visit the infamous Jewish ghetto in Venice, immortalized by Shakespeare's Shylock, they read that 8,000 Italian Jews were sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust. Only eight returned. Later, a guide notes that the Venetian Jewish community now numbers about 600 in a city of approximately 63,000. Doubly an outsider, as an American-Jew in an Italian city filled with some of the most famous Christian artwork in the world, Danny starts to question his place in the world, and a system of values that has left him largely alone. When he and Elijah fight about a woman Elijah meets at the scene of an accident, the brothers separate, leaving them both truly alone in a foreign country. Slowly each comes to realize that despite the pleasures and autonomy of being alone, "it's good to share a life." Elijah realizes that he isolates himself through casual relationships and does not express his feelings for the people he truly loves. Danny sees that his work has come between him and the people who love him most. The brothers reunite in Rome. They share a serendipitous sunrise at the Parthenon, followed by a tour of all the sites in the movie Roman Holiday, which they are surprised to discover they both love. In a conversation between Danny and one of his childhood friends, Levithan touches on the difficulty of being brothers, when the process of growing up interferes with the bond they once shared: "Brothers are not like sisters. They don't call each other every week. Will you be there for him if he needs you? Of course. Should you love him without question? Absolutely. But those are the easy things. Do you make him a large part of your life, an equal to a wife or a best friend? At the beginning, when you're kids, the answer is often yes. But when you get to