Night visitor door Gillian White

About the book:

Name of the book: Night Visitor
Author of the book: Gillian white
The year it has been published: 2001
Number of pages: 292 pages
The places the story took place: Plymouth (England), Venice (Italy)
The duration of the story: about 7 weeks

3 most important people:

Rose: she is a middle- aged, mother of two children and a beloved wife. Her early life was full of tragedy. At an age of 10, her twin brother died on a bike that had been his birthday present.
At an age of 14, her father disappeared one night, presumed drowned. After all this her mother collapsed and she mistreated Rose. After 30 years of marriage with Michael she is still madly in love with him. All her life he was the only one she could depend on and he was the only certainty in her life. She has a degree on history, but she doesn’t do anything with it. She has a lot of friends and everybody loves her, she always helps people.
But one day she finds a love letter from some Belinda in Michael’s pocket, this disturbs her a lot. Her biggest fear is that she is going to lose him and she will do anything to prevent that.

Jessie: she is the 19 years old, daughter of Rose and Michael. She has short hair and baggy clothes. She studies in a school to become a teacher. This is also the place where she meets Belinda, they get in a relationship. After a while Jessie breaks up with her, but Belinda starts stalking her. After that Belinda was removed from the school, she still came back to stalk Jessie and to make her families life miserable. Jessie has never told her mom about Belinda because of being ashamed of her sexuality. Jessie always depends on her dad, and goes to him for advice. After her dad had a stroke, she faced a difficult time. After a while she also fell in love with her sisters boyfriend.

Michael: a middle- aged, attractive man. He also has an own business. He is a man you can always rely on and trust. All the women envy Rose because of him. At an early age his parents died and his sister live in the U.S. He has always supported Rose in every decision she has made. He knows that Rose had a rough youth and does anything to protect her. After coming back from a vacation, he gets a stroke. Every after-noon he gets stronger but at night he gets weak and loses all of his control again. After a while he realizes that Rose has been poising him (he also knows why) and does everything to make the other people realize that.

Samenvatting:

Rose is a beloved and devoted wife of Michael. They have been married for 30 years. Rose had a rough youth, she lost her twin-brother when she was 10, and at the age of 14 she also lost her father. Her mother wasn’t a great help and ignored her most of the time. That is why her only certainty is Michael. They have 2 daughters together: Daisy, 23 years old, she has always problems with relationships. And Jessie, she is 19 years old, in school to become a teacher. Rose and Michael have a lot of friends and are adored.
One day Rose drugs their dog with pentobarbitone to put the dog out of his misery and that kills him. But nobody finds out that it was her who did it. And she hides the rest of the drugs.
Jessie is going to a new school where se doesn’t feel at home, but she meets Belinda, a very nice girl. But they get a relationship and after a while Belinda becomes too possessive, so Jessie breaks up with her. But Belinda starts stalking her, she writes letters, follows her etc. after a while Jessie turns to her father and tells him everything. Michael goes to her school and talks to the head: Sheila Gordon. She helps him and Belinda gets removed from that school, they also become good friends.
Daisy has a boyfriend: William, he is a charming guy but Daisy feels that he isn’t giving her enough attention. In every guy daisy tries to find the guy her father is, always there, always together and always listening.
Rose is very happy with Michael and they always do everything together. But one day Michael wants to go skyflying on his own. And both of the daughters insist that he goes alone. This hurts Rose but she knows she can trust Michael. But first Michael and Rose are going to Venice for a week. A few days before their departure, Rose finds a love letter from some Belinda for Michael. This makes her go crazy, she decides not to tell Michael or ask him anything. After crying for a while, she thinks of the drugs she used for the dog. This way she can keep Michael unconscious and she won’t lose him.
When they arrive in Venice Rose notices nothing strange about him, his behavior is still the same but that doesn’t change her mind. In Venice she asks an Italian if he can write in Italian that Michael is ill and that he is allowed to go back to U.S. This way she has proof that they have been to a doctor in Italy. After that she calls Jessie en tells her that daddy has a stroke and that they will come later. They won’t have to worry because he is in good hands and they are not allowed to call to their hotel. But nothing of that is true. On the day they got home, she received a phone call from Belinda saying that Michael and her belong together and that they have an affair. This makes Rose determined to give Michael the drugs, and she does that that night. Michael is sleeping and she knows she have to give him an injection that will make him look like he has had a stroke. Michael feels a sudden pain and loses his mind and falls back.
Rose feels really guilty, he is the man whom she loves with all her hearth, but he betrayed her and she can’t lose him. She can’t live without him, and it would be such an embarrassment when people know that Michael left her for some young girl, his own reputation will be ruined. Rose thinks that he is doing it for his own good. She pretends that she is not home and calls the girls a couple of days later. When they see him they get shocked, he had a couple of small strokes before but this is too big. Rose convinces the doctor, her mother and her daughters that it is the best for Michael to stay at home and recover here, there will also be a nurse coming here every day to help.
Meanwhile: Jessie meets Jasmine, a nice and very helpful men looking girl. They become good friends. Jessie gets stalked again by Belinda, she has been in her house and left poop in the corner, and destroyed her tiers. But now she can’t turn to her father, he has a stroke. But Jasmine is there to help her and support her.
Daisy tries to find the comfort in William, but he doesn’t really care.
Rose goes threw a dilemma, she loves Michael, but if he had told her about this affair she would forgive him. But he hasn’t so she has to keep him with her. It is difficult to see Michael in that position he was always the helper. Rose had to clean up his pee and wash him. The nurse came only once a day, but she also got help of her daughter’s en Jasmine.
Also the doctor came once in a while, and he saw that Michael was improving, and was happy that rose is there to support Michael.
After a while, Michael realizes that someone is deliberately giving him this pain, maybe some nurse. But after some time he realizes that it has been Rose, it is shocking how could she do something like this. But then he remembers! After Belinda was removed from the school, she would constantly call him and tell him that she needs help. He talked to her, out of sympathy. And she was also sending a lot of letter and she was also calling him at home. He always destroyed the letter but he forgot one, Rose has possibly read that and also received a phonecall. But how could she ever do this. Above all, there had been a fire in the house of Rose’s mom. And she died. This is a tragedy to all of them, although granny wasn’t the nicest and sometimes made life little difficult for them, they still loved her. They gave her a big funeral and were disappointed that Michael didn’t understand a thing and that he didn’t know that granny is died.
Michael tries anything to show somebody that rose is trying to kill her, when he gets at his strongest he writes on the table next to him: Rose=kill. Rose realizes that he knows that she has been poisoning him. The nurse thinks that he is trying to say that Rose has to put him out of his misery.
William is suspicious and calls to talk to Jessie in private, because he planned to go to Belinda’s house ( another city) and see what is really going on. She wasn’t allowed to tell that to anyone else. When she has having a confident one on one conversation with him she noticed that she has some feelings for him.
When William went to Belinda’s city, he heard that she was in a psychic hospital. And he went there, but he heard shocking news: Belinda has been dead for a couple of weeks.
But who was pretending to be Belinda? He called Jesse immediately and told her.
Next day, Jessie went to her mom together with Daisy, William and Jasmine to her mom everything. And she told her mom about: she had a lesbian-relationship with a Belinda McNab and being stalked by her when she broke up. At that moment Rose realizes that she has made a big and stupid mistake.
And that she has lost everything, then she remembers that she knows somebody in Spain where she can go to and after 6 months she will get the insurance money of her mom. She has to be quick. After she packs her stuff and goes downstairs, she sees that Jasmine is in her house and she wants to know where Rose is going. But before Jasmine can do anything Rose gets away. Michael feels bad, but better than 3 hours ago, he knows that Rose is coming anytime to drug him again and make him weak. Then he hears footsteps, it isn’t Rose but Daisy, and he is very relived. But then suddenly Daisy attacks him with a scissors, with the less strength that he has he tries to keep her away but Daisy cuts a piece of his tongue. But then William and Jessie rush in and help him. Now they know that that fake Belinda was Daisy, she was trying to get attention from William and it was getting out of hand. She also burned down the house of Jessie’s granny and killed her. Daisy went to a mental hospital, Michael was busy recovering, but then somebody came into the room: Sheila Gordon, she kissed him and the toasted on their love. Jessie and William also became a couple.
Rose stayed in Spain, she got once in a while a letter from Jessie. She also told her that Michael was seeing someone. She hoped that Michael would come to her some day just to talk, and he will, together with Sheila.

Opdrachten:

1. In welke mate heeft het boek je aangesproken?

- Het boek is interessant, spannend, mooi.
Ik vond het heel mooi hoe ze lieten zien hoe iemand van heel aardig, lief en betrouwbaar, iemand grof, jaloers en naïef ontwikkeld. Hoe het verhaal verteld werd was in het begin verwarend, maar later wende ik eraan. Bij elk hoofdstuk lieten ze een andere persoon aan het woord en zijn gedachten. Dat was heel interessant. Het werd spannender door dat er veel gebeurde, en je kreeg elke keer info over iets en paar hoofdstukken verder begreep je wat ze bedoelden. Alles stemde ook goed op elkaar af, je raakte niet inde war. En alles was duidelijk.
Diegene die echt de schuldige was zou je ook niet verwachten, dat is het leukste aan misdaad boeken. En ik hou ook veel van misdaad boeken. Deze past een beetje bij mij, maar ik zou nooit een familielid iets aandoen vooral niet voor aandacht.

2. Geef van 3 personen in het boek aan wat je van ze vindt?

- Daisy: gestoord, ziek.
Ik vind het dom dat zij voor aandacht van haar vriendje het leven van haar eigen zus hel maakt. En dat ze haar eigen oma heeft vermoordt is ziek. Ik het boek kwam ze heel normaal over, alleen ze zeurde teveel aan William, en vroeg teveel aandacht
- Rose: dom, naïef en verachtelijk.
Ten eerste, als je denkt dat je man vreemd gaat ga je meteen hem ermee confronteren vooral als je er 30 jaar mee bent getrouwd. Het is verachtelijk dat je na 30 jaar liefde en nadat hoeveel hij voor haar heeft gedaan zoiets doet. Want ze wist dat als je die medicijnen gebruikte ook pijn zou hebben,
-Jasmine: aardig, beetje raar
Zij hielp de familie heel erg, maar ze dacht ook dat ze het kind van God was. Verder zijn er heel weinig mensen die vreemden zoveel helpen.

3. Vertel wat je van het boek geleerd hebt.

-Ik heb geleerd dat je nooit iets geheim moet houden, dat als er iets is of je verdenkt iemand van iets, dat je er meteen naartoe gaat en vraagt wat er is. Dat ook mensen die echt aardig en goed zijn snel van gedachten kunnen veranderen, het was leuk om te zien hoe het hele proces ging. Verder had het verhaal niet zoveel nieuws of iets wijs dat je zou moeten leren. Je moet natuurlijk oppassen met stalkers, zo kun je ook een beetje meevoelen hoe het is als iemand je stalkt. En het lijkt mij niet fijn. Ik heb door het boek ook niet anders tegen bepaalde mensen aan gekeken, maar je ziet wel dat er veel gekken rondlopen.

4. Geef aan waarom klasgenoten/leeftijdgenoten dit boek ook zouden moeten lezen.

-Dit boek is interessant, want je leest hoe iedereen denkt. Dus het wordt niet verteld door één iemand of door de schrijver zelf alleen. Zo kun je veel beter alles begrijpen.
Door de boek heen worden heel veel vragen gesteld en ze worden ook beantwoord door verschillende mensen en verschillende antwoorden en pas op het einde weet je wat nou echt is gebeurd. Je moet wel van misdaad roman houden. En het is een heel lang verhaal en alles wordt precies beschreven bijv. hoe iemand denkt over één klein dingetje denkt. Het boek gebruikt ook veel vloek, seks wordt beschreven, je moet veel weten over gebeurtenissen in 2001, want soms verglijken ze dingen. Dit is een jongeren boek.