Losing Gemma door Katy Gardner

Pages: 308
First published: 2002

Place:

The story takes place the most of the time in India. At different places, because Gemma and Esther were backpackers. The preface takes place at the funeral of Gemma. And a very little piece of the story takes place at Esther’s house.

Time:

The story starts with a preface, that part takes place when Gemma is just dead. Namely at her funeral. So that would have taken place at aproximately page 220.
The story is a flashback from Esther. In this flashback she made some other flashbackes. The flashback is told in chonological order, beside the few flashbackes she make in the flashback. There are also a few parts which are told by Gemma. In the flashback she make a timejump of 5 jears. The flashback starts in 1989.

Theme:

the theme of the book is friendship. Esther and Gemma were bestfriends since childhood but when they went to India on the backpacking holiday they loose each other.

Main characters:

The main characters are Esther and Gemma
Esther: slim, pretty, graduated, full of selfconfidence, gets everything what she wants, she has oft boyfriends
Gemma: stout, not pretty, not graduated, smart, she hasn’t much succes with the boys

Summary:

Two girls, Esther and Gemma, friends since childhood, went to India on a backpacking holiday. Before they went on holiday Gemma had met a boy. She had a crush on him. But Esther also liked the boy and had an affair with him and the boy loved Esther too and not Gemma. Esther didn’t tell it to Gemma, but out guilty feelings she took Gemma with her to India.
In India they met Coral and she traveled with them. Esther didn’t like her so much, but Gemma and Coral were soon good friends. A few times they went away without Coral, but Coral always found them back.
They went to Agun Mazir, a little village. This place is best known as the site of the shrine of Pir Saheb Nirulla, a Sufi mystic who is said to have burnt to death there in 1947.
There all the mistery things started. Coral gets a strange behaviour, Gemma got fever and Esther got desilusions. Esther didn’t trust Coral anymore, she didn’t want to leave Gemma alone with Coral but she had to get medicines for Gemma. She went to the village, but there wasn’t a store open.
She wanted to go out of this village. She wanted to take Gemma with her and without Coral. She didn’t trust the whole situation anymore. She said it to Gemma and Gemma told her that she must go without her. Gemma didn’t even want Esther around anymore. She said she knew it of her and Stefe.
Esther went away alone. She first went back to their safe-deposit box, but everything had been taken out. Suddenly she thought Coral could have done this all. She had to go back. Coral and her mate Zak were dangerous. Coral had always found them back when they were without her. Coral and Zak had just followed them. And they hadn’t enough with just stealing everything. Gemma was in danger, in real danger. With her last money Esther went back. She went first to the bungalow where they were, but their wasn’t anybody. Then she went to the shrine, because Coral was always talking about it. There she found a burned body and on a finger was a ring, the ring which Stefe had given to Gemma. It was Gemma. Gemma was dead. She runs away to get hulp, but she fell and somebody found her later.
Then the story went five years further.
Esther went on holiday with Steve to Thailand. They had a relationship then. Esther still had a bad life because of losing Gemma.
The plane got angine problems and it must land in Dehli, India. Esther felt that it was now her time to search out what happened in the past, she had to tolk to Coral. She left Stefe and went on her own again the trip she made five years ago with Gemma. She was going to visit an ashram at an address on the Kulu road in order to find and to speak to someone about the dead of Gemma of which nobody believes she had been killed. Everybody thought it was een accident.
Then she saw a house. After she had lifted the knocker, Zak opened the door. She asked: ‘Is she there?’ Zak said where she was. Then Gemma appeared. She was still alive.
In the book was now a passage with the story of Gemma after Esther left. Here was told that the dead body wasn’t Gemma, but Coral. She wore the ring, because she wanted to marry with Zak. She died because she did a ritual with candels. And the candels fell. The stolen stuff were not stolen, but Gemma had given Zak the key to get everything out of it. Gemma decided not to tell this all to Esther.
Gemma told Esther that she wanted to stay here, because she would be happier here. Stefe wasn’t the reason for this. If Steve wasn’t something which she could be mad on Esther, she would have said something else. Gemma married Zak and she was happy now.
Esther discovered what she should have known all along. Gem and she loved each other once, but then it ended, like most childhood friendships eventually do. It did nog matter who did what, it was not about guilt or blame. It was just about growing up.

Personal opinion:

I liked the book. It was easy to read and you could read it out very fast. You didn’t know till the end how it would end. So that made it an exiting story.