Ollie Come Free
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
When a lightning strike shatters Ollie Buckmeyer's world, it leaves him with a strange new gift—and uncanny drawings that reveal a mystery no one can explain.
Before the accident, Ollie had friends, a quick wit, and a carefree life on one of the last cattle ranches in Southern California. Now that world is gone.
Though he looks like the same old Ollie, his family mourns, his friends drift away, and the girl he cares about has moved on. Even the simplest conversations are now impossible.
But the lightning strike leaves Ollie with something extraordinary.
Suddenly he can see the world with uncanny clarity—remembering every detail and recreating it in drawings of startling precision. His sketches reveal hidden places…and clues to a mystery that has haunted the Buckmeyer ranch for more than a century—a buried fortune generations have searched for—and never found.
As Ollie's strange new talent begins pointing the way, his family must decide whether to follow the clues—or leave the past buried where it belongs.
Praised by Publishers Weekly as "fast-paced and heart-rending," Ollie Come Free is a moving and suspenseful novel about family, resilience, and the unexpected gifts hidden within tragedy.
Praise for Ollie Come Free
"When 11-year-old Ollie Buckmeyer is struck by lightning at a Little League game in 1991, what ensues is a series of fast-paced, heart-rending vignettes about a family trying to hold itself together despite complicated circumstances." — Publishers Weekly
"A rewarding page-turner." — Foreword Clarion Reviews
"A truly original cast of characters." — BlueInk Reviews
"Sensitive…engaging…a grounded exploration of recovery, resentment, and redemption." — BookLife Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When white goofball Ollie Buckmeyer, 11, is struck by lightning at a Little League game in 1991, what ensues is a series of fast-paced, heart-rending vignettes about a family trying to hold itself together despite complicated circumstances. Left with a traumatic brain injury and acquired savantism, Ollie returns from the hospital a completely different person, and must cope with losing the girl he loved and the life he once led. Ollie pours his soul into his drawings—but there are those who would take advantage of him, like his impulsive, ill-intentioned brother Cody. Shahid's b&w illustrations, representing Ollie's art, add an immersive quality, but readers never get to hear from the titular character himself. Varied, shifting perspectives center mostly adult characters, except for Cody, with the most riveting point-of-view being his mother Cathy's emotional story line, as she witnesses the changes in her son and others' treatment of him. Interweaving muddled dreams, flashbacks, speculations, and musings, Patrick features bonds broken, reformed, and healed, as each of the characters searches for a support system in the wake of this tragedy, and looks for the good in the person Ollie has now become. Ages 14–up. (Self-published)
