I tried reading this book but sadly I didn't make it very far while reading this book. I think that the different point of views made it a bit difficult to understand . I usually love this author's books and I hoped that this one would work out for me.

The only things brothers Oscar and Vance have in common are a mother, who died in a car crash three years earlier, and an alcoholic father, who is dying of liver failure. Vance, a high-school senior, loves to hang and drink with his dad, and thinks Oscar is a drag. Oscar, a year younger, loves to draw and listen to classical music, but has become withdrawn because his interests are mocked by his family. He sees what alcohol is doing to his father and how his brother is stumbling down the same path. Told in alternating first-person accounts—Oscar’s in the present and Vance’s moving forward from the night their mother died—the brothers’ stories are frank and honest. The divide between them is clearly drawn, and Walton allows their personal healing to occur organically. There are plenty of teen novels in which parents die; however, this is a cut above as its main characters must struggle through loss twice and navigate decisions normally consigned to adults. (Appeared in Booklist, Feb. 17, 2017)

I met this author this year and this was her most recent book. I have been doing this thing where I will buy an authors latest book and if I like it I will go back and read their older works. This book was very good! I have since read 2 of her other books and can say and I rather happy to have found her.

I really loved the sibling relationship in this one as well as the narrative on how people feel when a family member dies.

This book was just okay for me. I liked the story, and how it was formatted with flashbacks. It's not uncommon for siblings to be total opposites, so it was very believable that way. The tragedies that the boys endured were heartbreaking, and the portrayal of the alcoholic father was authentic. My concern is that a lot of the teen readers at my library are probably not going to stick with this book until the end of the story. It feels slow for a young adult book, and my teens give up when that happens. That's not the story's fault, it's just how teens are wired. However, I think this would be a good story for teens that are dealing with loss, sickness requiring Hospice, and/or an alcoholic parent. It is always good for kids to know that they are not alone.

This book focuses on complicated family relationships. The brother-to-brother interaction was so strained their whole lives. They have to face their issues when they realize they may be all each other has left if their father passes away. The format really worked for the story as you read Oscar's real time reactions and Vance's past memories.

This book tore me up all into all kinds of sharp jagged pieces. By the end I think I lost track of how much I cried and my boyfriend was contemplating my mental health. Ultimatum is a dual POV but done incredibly well. Oscar's POV is set in the present. Vance's takes place from the earliest memory leading all the way up to the present. The mix of timelines really draws the differences in these brothers and how their minds work. Vance is so brash and angry while Oscar is a introvert and quiet soul.

I'm not going to give anything away but by the end of this book I can guarantee you'll be misty eyed. I love their newfound relationship with one another and this book was the perfect mix of soul wrench sadness and coming of age moments.

I REALLY wanted to like this book and at some points I really did. The story of two brothers being raised by their dad after mom dies. Dad is an alcoholic and seems to favor Vance over Oscar. Vance is a star in lacrosse and a player with the girls while Oscar likes classical music and is a good student. Trouble brews when Vance is hurt and dad takes a downward fall. The brothers are left to make a decision that will impact their lives.

While I loved the concept and the detail of the thoughts of the brothers, the ending was so predictable that it was almost painful to get to the end.

I know this is ranked as one of the top new books for the year but I just don't see it. There is too much predictability here.

I think the way the story was told was brilliant. You've got two different points of views telling two different parts of the story. Oscar leads us through present day events and Vance taking us from the past to the present. They work in perfect harmony, painting a full picture of what's happening to the brothers and how they got there.

Ultimatum tugs at your heartstrings throughout the entire book. Oscar and Vance are going through an incredibly difficult time, but the author doesn't sugarcoat it. The emotion feels real and believable.

Ultimatum is a heartbreaking story about grief and finding hope where you least expect it.

This book was completely heartbreaking. Following the two boys as they watch their father did was hard. I felt as if I was like a ghost in the room throughout the book following them as they go through with these emotions. I liked how in Vance's perspective it shows him having flashbacks up until the present day. Him and his brother didn't have the best relationship and I was happy to see that they were able to resolve things at the end. Ultimatum literally broke my heart. You have turmoil, regret, death and learning how to grieve talked all throughout the book. Also it shows how one can disconnect when death comes in the way (Oscar became a hermit, Vance was too into sports and parties and the dad became a alcoholic). Super powerful book that I recommend.

Ultimatum is the story of two brothers who are dealing with the impending death of their father. Oscar and Vance are complete opposites from each other. When they were little, their mother died and since them the wedge between the boys has only gotten larger. However, now that their father is on his death bed with the clock ticking away, the boys have some decisions to make, remain a family and lean on each other or go into the foster system.

When I say that these boys are complete opposites, I mean it. Oscar is the younger of the two and has always felt like the odd man out. Once his mother passed away, Oscar felt alone. Sure, he lived with his father and brother but his brother hated his guts for some reason and his father was an alcoholic. Actually the father and brother were a lot alike. They both drank, they were both out of control, and they both thought being such was “cool”. However, Oscar was the quiet type. He preferred to hang out in his room and draw instead, and he didn’t have any friends. These two brothers were so opposite and hated each other so much, that I wasn’t overly sure what was going to happen to them when the time came.

Ultimatum is told between both brothers POV and it also switches between past and present. So, we are given a look at how things came about. Vance’s POV is told in the past and Oscar’s is told in the present. In all honesty, I was not a fan of Vance, not even at the end. He was selfish and a bully. He drinks, does drugs, and expects everyone to do what he wants and when they don’t he throws a hissy fit. What killed me was that he idolized his father, the man who cheated on his wife time and time again, who was a raging alcoholic, and who saw nothing wrong with bringing a total stranger home and banging her brains out… while the boys were home. The way Vance treated Oscar was horrible. He talked down to him, excluded him, and pretty much pushed him out of his life… and yet claimed that Oscar did it himself, that Oscar thought he was better than everyone. I just couldn’t handle Vance’s personality. I felt bad for Oscar. He watched his father spiral out of control, watched his brother follow in their father’s footsteps, and wound up finding himself as an outcast because he didn’t partake in the same things as his father and brother. Oscar was the light at the end of the tunnel for me.

While I couldn’t stand Vance, their story was no less captivating. The author has a way of roping you in and holding you captive with her story. I had to know what happened, both in the past and future. Why did they turn out the way they did? What would happen when their father passed away? Would the brothers ever see eye to eye? Needless to say, I wound up reading this book in a handful of hours. I sat down to read a couple of chapters and didn’t get back up until I finished the whole thing.

This was a raw, emotional and heart-breaking novel about grief, mourning, alcoholism, and family relationships. It tells the story of two brothers - popular and sporty Vance, and quiet, different Oscar - who lost their mother and are about to lose their father. I love how the chapters switch between Oscar telling the present story, and Vance telling their story from 2 years ago. I can't recommend it enough.

Ultimatum - K M Walton

This is the first of K M Walton's books that I've read, but I am sure as heck going to find me some more to work through because my God, this is someone that can write teenagers and grief and the different ways to deal with grief and this book was just so harrowing yet addictive!

Oscar is misunderstood. Ever since his mother died, he's been disrespected and bullied by his family, and he seeks refuge in his art. Vance is a popular athlete and wishes his brother would just loosen up and be cool. It was hard enough to deal with their mother's death without Oscar getting all emotional. Vance just wants to throw himself into partying, to live.
But when their father's alcoholism sends him into liver failure, the two boys must come face-to-face with their demons-and each other-if they are going to survive an uncertain future.

Essentially, this is the story of a very broken family and I am kind of a sucker for stories about broken families. We have shy, sensitive Oscar who likes art and music and is constantly treading on egg shells around his older brother, Vance, who is sporty and outgoing, both of them very aware of their differences and how little they have in common. Life at home for Oscar gets worse after the death of their mother because neither his father or his older brother understand him and he doesn't understand them and then that father drinks himself to death and these two broken teenagers need to learn to live together and work together if they're going to get anywhere in this world and the whole thing is just so gloriously well written.

This is narrated by both Oscar and Vance. Oscar is telling you the present, the two of them sat together in a hospice essentially waiting for their father to die and trying to figure out what the hell he is going to do after that happens, because all he has is Vance and he is fairly sure Vance hates him.
Vance tells you the past, the events leading up to this moment of him and his brother sat in a hospice, of his fears about the future and what the hell he is going to do about it just being him and Oscar because he is fairly sure Oscar hates him.

Its all so angsty and I love it.

Vance and Oscar are both really well rounded and fleshed out, they're so wildly different but also surprisingly similar with their own voices and motivations. You see from each of them their grief and their guilt and their fear over this situation and the whole thing pretty much takes place either in Vance's memory or Oscar's present in the hospice.

What we have isn't a plot heavy story, in fact, there isn't much of one, this is character driven from the first to the last page. It is a journey of discovery and development for these two boys. Oscar spends the book realising that he is loved and valued, even if the other men in his life don't know how to show that, he is acknowledged by his peers and they do care about him as his own person, not just as Vance's little brother and then we have Vance, who goes from desperately trying to hold onto his fragile idea of masculinity just so his dad would love and accept him to realising he can be his own man and still have that connection with his father, that life is about more than self destructing and that Oscar isn't the enemy.

Something this book does well is conflict and reflection, not just between the two boys, but within themselves. Oscar feels guilty for wanting the whole thing to be over because he does love his father, he does want him to survive and he feels guilty about being so far removed from Vance. Again, we see Vance's guilt, his reflecting on how he could have dealt with things differently, how he and Oscar could have grown together instead of apart.

It can be quite a difficult read at times, so for those of you who need them, a few trigger warnings, you have character death and descriptions of drug and alcohol misuse, and although these things are plot points, the book isn't really about that. It's about family and mending what you think is broken beyond repair.

Oooo I do love a family drama!

This book was given to me by the lovely folk at Netgalley and will be available from March this year!

“We had an ultimatum, didn’t we? Go our separate ways, do our own thing…”

4 to 4,5 « complicated » stars

An ARC has been kindly provided by SOURCEBOOKS Fire, via NetGalley.com, in exchange for an honest review.

First of all this story is not “all one thing”. It’s complicated and brutal in its honesty.
The author broaches many difficult topics (alcoholism, death, family ties…) and she does not sugarcoat it. Neither does she trade in pathos. She just writes it like it is with fairness and finesse. I dare you to remain unaffected.
I couldn’t.
I bet everyone will find something he/she has intimately experienced before. It will trigger memories and raw emotions.
It was hard to read sometimes. Not because it’s boring or the writing is bad. But because I could walk in these boys shoes. I experienced these feelings myself. I lived them as a teenager. All that anger, frustration, disbelief and sadness you can feel for a loved one hell bent on the path of self- destructing I know them. Intimately.

That’s why I can say with absolute certainty that K.M. Walton did a brilliant job writing this novel.

Some readers experiencing death of family members and friends will also remember painful moments. Did you get closure? Did you part ways on angry words? Did you tell them that you loved them? Did you do everything you could to help them in life?
Saying goodbye is never easy, be it expected or sudden.

Vance and Oscar are waiting for their father to die. He drank himself to death and nothing can be done anymore except ease his suffering at the hospice.
They will soon be orphans as their mother was killed in a car accident years before.
They should help each other only…this is not so easy. They’re about “as messed up as family can be”.
They are so different and haven’t shared anything brotherly for years and years. They don’t understand each other. Resentment is festering between them.

Vance is living. He is action. He is recklessness. The life of the party he is an athlete always ready to have fun with their father, dance on some reggae song or drink to have more than a buzz.
“Playing lacrosse was the best thing on earth. Who wouldn’t like challenging themselves and being awesome at something? Every time I geared up and stepped onto the field, it motivated me to do better, play harder. Nothing beat the smile on Dad’s face when I scored or took a guy out. Lacrosse made me friggin’ happy. Nothing made Oscar happy. All he did was mope around and make everyone around him miserable. With his grouchy attitude, he wouldn’t survive eighth grade”
“Dad and I spoke the same language. Oscar was like an alien.”

Oscar is feelings. He is always listening and thinking. A loner he loves listening to classical music and drawing in his sketchbook. He is socially awkward. He’s never been a party animal but since his mother’s death he’s become a real recluse. He can’t connect with his dad or with his brother.
“Vance has never understood me—and he never will. Even down to the music I listen to. When we were in middle school, he’d make fun of me because of it. I can still see him playing an imaginary violin with wild, insulting movements, doing everything in his power to look weird. Were Vance and I ever close? I blink and realize the answer. No, we’ve never been close—despite only being ten months apart.”
And he is angry with his father.
Why did he have to drink so much? Why did he have to be so careless with his life? Why did he have to hurt their mother time and again? Why did he never go to one of his exhibition but nearly never missed one of Vance’s matches?
“Seeing. Hearing. Loving like I mean it. That’s the man I want to be.”


It was so full of emotions, inner thoughts, regret, hopes and I was surprised when I realized the major part of the story happens within 24 hours.
Around this deathbed, they’ll experience guilt for willing their dad to “just die already”, fear for being orphans and never having anyone else to speak about family memories. They’ll wish for a magic wand, just to do everything over again “Then perhaps we could all start over. My father could be a sober businessman instead of a raging, alcoholic bar owner. My mother could be his wife instead of his doormat. And she’d be alive. My brother could be my brother instead of an inordinate blob of human skin that simply chooses not to understand me. I could be happy.”

Back and forth we go between past and present. The past showing how their family fell apart with their mother’s loss. The present forcing these brothers to make a choice: go their separate ways forever or rekindle their brotherhood. Be a family.

Who would I recommend this book to? To readers wanting something real, something confrontational about family ties, uneasy love and regrets eating people alive slowly. To readers unafraid of shedding tears because you’ll cry I can promise you.

I don't know what the author was trying to achieve: this reads like a memorandum of how not to behave--not with family, or anyone. Ever.
Was that the point of the book?

"Ultimatum" is a heart-wrenching story of two brothers who have always seen themselves as opposites and impossible, learning that they are all they have left. Oscar and Vance are about a year apart and while Oscar likes art, classical music and privacy/quiet, Vance likes sports (lacrosse), reggae, and partying. Their mother died three years ago and their dad is currently in hospice, but he's been less than ideal for a long time, as a severe alcoholic. Oscar took after their mother and Vance took after their father- including with drugs and alcohol.

The book is told in alternating perspectives between Oscar's in the present and Vance's throughout time (since their mother's death through to the near future). It's essentially a breakdown of all the places their relationship tore apart and Vance's life fell apart. All framed by the two brothers watching their father die in hospice. It is certainly an emotional ride.

The book is incredibly well composed and difficult to put down, as it spirals through critical life events and the inevitability of death as they count their father's breaths. This is written at a level that is more mature than most YA books and should be considered for older teens and adults- there is a lot of drug use, alcoholism, mentions of infidelity/sex, and other adult themes. That being said, it is certainly a book that will leave you with a lot to consider/think about. It's a heavy read but does end with a note of hope. There are many poignant themes that can be gleaned from this book- it's a powerful read.

Overall, I would recommend this book to older/mature YA readers as it really is beautifully composed. Please note that I received an ARC from the publisher through netgalley. All opinions are my own.