Review: Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

Publication Date: April 1^st 2017
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 388 pages

Bailey “Mink” Rydell has met the boy of her dreams. They share a love of films and talk all day – Alex is perfect. Well, apart from the fact that they’ve never actually met . . . and neither of them knows the other’s real name. 
When Bailey moves to sunny California to live with her dad, who happens to live in the same town as Alex, she decides to track him down. But finding someone based on online conversations alone proves harder than Bailey thought, and with her irritating but charismatic (and potentially attractive?) colleague Porter Roth distracting her at every turn, will she ever get to meet the mysterious Alex? 

I positively adored “Night Owls” (or “The Anatomical Shape of a Heart” if you’re in America) and as soon as I realised there was another offering from Jenn Bennett on the shelves, I didn’t hesitate to pick it up.

It was exactly what I expected, and exactly what I’d hoped for – a light, romantic story with whip smart dialogue and a swoon-worthy romance at its heart. The only dampener was that you could see the “twist” coming a mile off, but so long as you don’t mind knowing roughly where the story is going, it doesn’t detract from it at all.

If you’re a fan of light fluff filled romance that will definitely give you butterflies, or some classic rom coms (think “You’ve got Mail”) then this is a definite must read. Perfect for whiling away a few hours, and to give you that swooping feeling of that first epic love, this is one I know I’ll be coming back to time and time again.

Review: Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

Publication Date: April 9^th 2013 (audiobook release)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Length: 7hrs 29 mins

A lyrical novel about family and friendship from critically acclaimed author Benjamin Alire Sáenz.
Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be. 

So many people have loved this book, so many people whose bookish overlap mine, so I was expecting to love this book when I finally sat down to listen to it. Unfortunately it ended up being a bit of a rocky road. I don’t know if it was that I didn’t get along with listening to it and would have loved it had I decided to read it instead, or whether I was in the wrong frame of mind, but this novel and I really did not get along until around 80% of the way through. And that was heart-breaking.

I couldn’t connect with the characters, I found both Ari and Dante frustrating. I was irritated by the emotional swings – people crying all the time. The writing style was at times abrasive and abrupt, intermittently littered with truly beautiful prose. It was just such a mix and I couldn’t settle into the story.

Finally at around the 80% mark I settled more into the rhythm of the story and found myself beginning to really care about these characters, so by the end I was thoroughly engrossed in the story, but it was so frustrating for it to have taken that long to pull me in.

There is so much to love about this story though. Like I said, it has some truly gorgeous prose and some really profoundly beautiful phrases and quotes that I loved. I loved the content, the subject matter tackled, the two polar opposites we find in Ari and Dante. I loved their parents. Too often in young adult fiction parents are portrayed as awful, absent, or ignored completely. Here both Ari and Dante’s parents are complex individuals who round out the story and complete it in ways that would never be achieved if the focus was purely on the two boys. Their love for each other shines through, and each of them is individual bringing their own fears, hopes, and personalities to the narrative.

I think part of the problem for me was that the story is incredibly slow. There is no driving force to the plot to really propel it and keep the momentum going. It ambles, it pauses, it takes tangents, and at times that can be incredibly frustrating. I think that would have been less of a problem for me had I been reading this, but listening to someone else take these narrative rambles didn’t hold my interest.

I can see why people love this book. I can see why others have found it frustrating and hard to engage with. It isn’t a favourite for me – yet. I think this is one of those times I need to go away and forget it for a few years, then come back and read it rather than listen to it. 

Review: Dangerous Lies by Becca Fitzpatrick

Publication Date: November 10^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books
Length: 385 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska, is not her real home. This is not her real life.
After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.
But Stella was about to start her senior year with the boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.
As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks… 

‘Dangerous Lies’ ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand I was caught up by the story and found myself picking it up at odd moments, desperate to read just a few more pages whenever I had time. On the other hand, problems galore.

Let’s start with the biggie, Stella herself who is one of the most unlikeable heroines I’ve read this year. She’s whiney, she’s self-centred, she says some of the most awful things imaginable (I frequently did double takes, particularly when she’s thinking/talking about Innie’s pregnancy, because dear god girl put some kind of mouth filter thought process in place.) and she’s an all round not nice person. That makes it hard to root for her and to want to see her story through. Sure she does have some character development throughout the story but it’s not really enough and left me wanting to shake her at various points.

Side note: what on earth were they thinking when they put her into witness protection and changed her name from Estella to Stella?!... And Stella’s response to that name. Surely with a name like Estella, her name is going to have been shortened to Stella at some point in her life? Everything around the name change/her real name made my head hurt.

Some of it was really well done, other parts just seemed overblown and clichéd. I loved the slow ambling plot, just seeing Stella get used to Thunder Basin and its residents and watching her try to fit in. The day to day existence was great to see and I really enjoyed those parts of it. But then there was everything else, and those were the points that didn’t work quite so well.

We’ve got Stella’s boyfriend Reed who gets sent elsewhere for protection. The only way we really got to know Reed was through his letters that Stella had managed to smuggle out to Thunder Basin with her. Lovely idea, poorly executed. Reed comes across as an absolute arse, really truly unlikeable, Stella why are you bothering with this guy? It made her devotion to him seem completely unexplainable; add in that as soon as he’s declared missing she goes from pining and trying to get in touch with him to ‘oh well, make out time!’ and it’s even more bizarre. That his story is left so unfinished with no real ending or resolution is the icing on the grumpy cake. (Side note: Thanks so much Becca Fitzpatrick for doing a disservice to Fibromyalgia sufferers everywhere by including a little talked about illness and painting it atrociously. That really made me furious.)

The other characters are mixed, I enjoyed seeing Chet and Carmine and their interactions, but anything involving Trigger or Stella’s Mum seemed contrived and one dimensional. The rest of the characters are a hodge podge that make the town feel bigger but don’t really manage to be memorable.

Then there’s the plot. I’ve already said how much I loved the slow, hazy summer days – that was really well done. However a lot of the elements to do with the Witness Protection and the case were poorly handled. A lot of backstory was smushed in in one big info dump and the big climax happened in the last twenty pages or so with no real build up or pay off. It felt completely random. As a result I found it really hard to rate this one, but have ultimately gone for the lower rating simply because after a few days thinking about it the frustrations and gripes are winning out over the good points.

If you enjoy slow day to day existences and a gradual unfurling relationship then you’ll love the romance in this one. However if you’re picking it up purely for the crime/thriller aspects then it really doesn’t live up to expectations.

Review: Zeroes by Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan & Deborah Bancotti

Publication Date: September 24^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books
Length: 546 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Ethan aka Scam has a voice inside him that'll say whatever people want to hear, whether it's true or not. Which is handy, except when it isn't - like when the voice starts gabbing in the middle of a bank robbery. The only people who can help are the other Zeroes, who aren't exactly best friends these days.
Enter Nate, aka Bellwether, the group's 'glorious leader.' After Scam's SOS, he pulls the scattered Zeroes back together. But when the rescue blows up in their faces, the Zeroes find themselves propelled into whirlwind encounters with ever more dangerous criminals. At the heart of the chaos they find Kelsie, who can take a crowd in the palm of her hand and tame it or let it loose as she pleases.
Filled with high-stakes action and drama, Zeroes unites three powerhouse authors for the opening installment of a thrilling new series.

I love some good super powers and this blurb had me thoroughly excited to get stuck into a new series by some authors that I’ve loved. Unfortunately the book never quite lives up to the expectations set by the blurb.

There are six point of view characters, all with code names all with different stories and abilities. That’s a lot of points of view to get used to, particularly when they’re skipping between them every few pages. I never really felt like I got change to get to know one before we were off with someone else. Sadly I only ever really connected with two of the characters, which of six is a bit worrying. The other four were filled with padding, useless exposition and frustrating inner dialogues that never really moved the story forward. I frequently found myself skim reading those four and only properly reading Flicker and Anon, the two I found most interesting. Add to that the other four being thoroughly unlikeable or uninteresting and I found myself feeling thoroughly bored for the majority of the book.

That is a symptom of the entire book, there’s so much set up and then nothing much happens. You just end up skimming back and forth between all these different characters whilst nothing actually drives the plot forward. There are one or two moments where everything kicks up a gear and it gets interesting, but on the whole not really enough to keep my interest. There’s a lot of referencing to events that happened before the start of the book which leads to a lot of confusion and frustration. I was almost more interested in the events prior to the book than in the events in this book. So whilst it felt like a sequel, it also felt like a prequel, one to introduce these characters and put them all in place for the proper start to the series. So perhaps the second book in the series will go infinitely better than this one.

This had so much potential, and it does shine through at a few points, but if you’re after an exciting and fast paced new set of super powered teenagers this is not the place to look. Slow, boring and sadly lacking in interesting characters, zeroes sadly lives up to its name.

Review: Lock & Mori by Heather W. Petty

Publication Date: September 15^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 256 pages

In modern-day London, two brilliant high school students, one Sherlock Holmes and a Miss James "Mori" Moriarty, meet. A murder will bring them together. The truth very well might drive them apart.
Before they were mortal enemies, they were much more.
FACT: Someone has been murdered in London's Regent's Park. The police have no leads.
FACT: Miss James "Mori"Moriarty and Sherlock "Lock" Holmes should be hitting the books on a school night. Instead, they are out crashing a crime scene.
FACT: Lock has challenged Mori to solve the case before he does. Challenge accepted.
FACT: Despite agreeing to Lock's one rule--they must share every clue with each other--Mori is keeping secrets.
OBSERVATION: Sometimes you can't trust the people closest to you with matters of the heart. And after this case, Mori may never trust Lock again.

This book nearly sent me into a rage spiral that would have sent my kindle flying across the room, except a) there were one or two redeeming features (although sadly not as many as I would have liked) and b) my kindle is new.

I’ve always been a little wary of Sherlock Holmes retellings – I love the books, I love the movies I love the shows, but as soon as you start sticking my beloved characters into strange and slightly side eye worthy situations I get nervous. Then earlier this year I read ‘Every Breath’ by Ellie Marney and it was so GLORIOUSLY GOOD that I thought maybe I had been too hasty to judge. After all here was a modern day re-telling that involved teenage James Mycroft and Rachel Watts and it was so good I shrieked loudly and often at everyone over the days following reading it. So after that brilliance I found I had renewed interest in the forthcoming ‘Lock and Mori’ which featured a teenage Sherlock and Moriarty with a modern setting and a gender twisted Moriarty – colour me intrigued.

Sadly though, it really didn’t live up to those expectations. As with several books I’ve read recently the only thing that stopped this being a one star read was that the writing was not bad, in fact in places it was quite good – it’s just a shame about everything else.

Sherlock does not actually feel like the Sherlock we have come to know through the original stories, in fact the only things he shares are a name, a brother called Mycroft and a slight tendency towards the genius. Which we see in precisely one scene at the start of the book and then it’s dropped in favour of INSTALOVE.

I could possibly forgive the Sherlock character destruction (I’m lying, I totally couldn’t) if Mori had been an interesting and compelling character. Sadly I was disappointed yet again. She’s not a particularly nice person, very selfish to the detriment of others, and for me she really didn’t work at all. Sure she’s intelligent, but she’s aloof, cold, not particularly likeable even to the reader and her reasoning behind a lot of the decisions she makes in the book seemed bizarre at best. Sherlock’s fascination with her I could understand – after all she’s definitely intelligent, but instalove? Really? The big reason at the end for why Mori will never trust Sherlock again left me feeling decidedly non-plussed. 

Any sort of logic or reasoning she may have been in possession of disappears at around the half way mark where solving murders is tossed away in favour of make out sessions, and justice and safety for not just herself but her three younger brothers is tossed aside for decidedly tenuous reasons. Add in the fact that she's an English girl referring to her Mum as 'Mom' and I was about ready to give up.

Then there’s the pacing. We discover who the murderer is at the half way point and I reached that reveal, checked to see how much more of the book was left and genuinely didn’t know how the second half could possibly be filled. Short answer? Badly. It plays on all the tired clichés – look how stupid the adults are, we teenagers will solve everything and save the day! being the most frustrating to witness. Chuck in the instalove and I was ready to weep at the assassination of these characters. I’m all for playing with well-loved characters, twisting the scenarios to see how they work with different players and variables, but sadly in this case it really didn’t work.

If you’re after a good modern day Sherlock story then I cannot recommend ‘The Every trilogy’ by Ellie Marney enough. If you’re a fan of Sherlock, of the original stories, of interesting believable characters and well built up romance then sadly ‘Lock and Mori’ won’t be the book for you. It’s a great concept that could have been brilliant, but sadly is left to founder in bad pacing, terrible characters and an unbelievable plot.

Review: Night Owls by Jenn Bennett

Publication Date: August 13^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books
Length: 272 pages

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Artist Beatrix Adams knows exactly how she's spending the summer before her senior year. Determined to follow in Leonardo da Vinci’s footsteps, she's ready to tackle the one thing that will give her an advantage in a museum-sponsored scholarship contest: drawing actual cadavers. But when she tries to sneak her way into the hospital’s Willed Body program and misses the last metro train home, she meets a boy who turns her summer plans upside down.
Jack is charming, wildly attractive… and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight buses and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who Jack really is—and tries to uncover what he’s hiding that leaves him so wounded. But will these secrets come back to haunt him? Or will the skeletons in Beatrix’s own family’s closet tear them apart?

Side note: This book has been published under two different titles, because, you know, it’s fun to confuse people. So whilst you may know it as Night Owls, you may also know it as ‘The Anatomical Shape of a Heart’ (which has a much cooler cover and I wants it now) and really I’m not sure why this has happened, but it has. Let the confusion commence! Double side note, I’ve nabbed the blurb from TASOAH because it is SO MUCH BETTER than the one given to Night Owls.

So this book guys, I need to hug it, and stroke it, and generally just not let it out of my sight for a while because I loved it so much. It’s definitely one of my top books of the year with a host of brilliant characters, swoon-worthy romance and an interesting and surprising plot.

I fell in love with Bex and Jack, they were such fresh and original characters – engaging, interesting and so desperately real. They do not come across as your average YA romance types – Bex is an artist determined to make it drawing anatomical studies and Jack is a rockabilly graffiti artist creating stunning yet odd pieces of art across the city.

They meet by chance and from that first amusing conversation and heated staring match across the bus aisle, I was hooked. Whilst there is so much more to the story, the romance really drives it. It’s a gorgeous romance and is portrayed so brilliantly and realistically – all the aspects, rather than just the early smushy stuff.

Whilst we have much easier access to Bex’s thoughts and emotions as the story is given to us through her, I loved that we got to see fleshed out characters, situations and families for both Jack and Bex. They were such vivid characters, unique, fascinating and complex. I don’t want to spoil anything for the story, so I’m going to stay vague, but suffice to say I loved it. I loved them and I’m having a hard time putting it into words how much.

This is so much more than a teen romance. As with all of my favourite YA romances it is packed with incredibly real characters and issues that make this a really engrossing read, with the romance adding extra squishy feelings on top. I loved how much time is spent looking at family, as both Bex and Jack have very different family lives and situations and it was interesting seeing them tackle the problems that arose, learning how to be their own people as well as a part of a family unit. There were even several emotional moments where I got a little bit teary eyed when it came to the resolutions of the family storylines.

The writing is gorgeous and down to earth with Bex’s clear voice, her humour, her hopes and fears, all shining through in some truly gorgeous turns of phrase.

“And then he was kissing me like we were both on fire and he was trying to put the flames out, and I kissed him back like an arsonist with a pocketful of matches.”

This is an awesome book, one that took me by surprise and swept me off my feet. It’s funny, it’s unique and it’s now a firm favourite. If you like your romances with a bit of hidden depths, this is a must read.

Review: Remix by Non Pratt

Publication Date: June 4^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books
Length: 304 pages

From the author of Trouble comes a new novel about boys, bands and best mates.
Kaz is still reeling from being dumped by the love of her life... Ruby is bored of hearing about it. Time to change the record.
Three days. Two best mates. One music festival. Zero chance of everything working out.

This book was a bit of a mixed read for me, I loved a lot of it, but there were some aspects that really didn’t work for me.

I loved Ruby and Kaz’s relationship, how well they knew each other and how deep their love and loyalty to the other went. But unfortunately there would be no story if everything was peachy, so watching the miscommunications and anger and frustrations build up was painful because you could see that they would work together (and do) so well, but they weren’t managing it now and as it hurt each of them, it hurts to read it. Being able to see into each of their heads meant that the reader is privy to the thoughts, the angst, the moments when the other doesn’t quite understand or misreads the situation. It’s a fascinating situation to be in because we can understand and sympathise with both points of view.

I loved the complex relationships with everyone around them – the sibling relationships, the exes and their fractured relationships, friendships and parental relationships. Non tackles all of them with a deft skill and offers an incredibly realistic view on all of these plus all the extra complexities of life as a teenager. School and body image and sex. This book felt real and I loved it.

The things that really caused me to gripe were the issues of cheating. I think it was handled really realistically, but that didn’t make it something I particularly enjoyed reading about it. I found the resolution of Ruby’s storyline in relation to that element particularly to be frustrating to read. Kaz on the other hand, whilst I understood her point of view and where she was coming from, felt like she was sat on her high horse about the whole thing for far too long which became increasingly frustrating to read. I liked that she does eventually see what she’s been doing and how badly she’s been handling it all, but it felt a little bit like too little too late.

My second gripe was the ending because it felt like there was too much left unresolved. I loved the resolutions we were given, but I wanted more and to see how a lot of the other story threads played out.

Despite those gripes I really loved this book. It was a quick and enjoyable summer read. It was realistic and brilliantly written and a fantastic introduction to Non’s writing – now I can’t wait to get stuck into ‘Trouble’.

Review: Emmy & Oliver by Robin Benway

Publication Date: July 16^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 352 pages

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Emmy’s best friend, Oliver, reappears after being kidnapped by his father ten years ago. Emmy hopes to pick up their relationship right where it left off. Are they destined to be together? Or has fate irreparably driven them apart?
Emmy just wants to be in charge of her own life.
She wants to stay out late, surf her favorite beach—go anywhere without her parents’ relentless worrying. But Emmy’s parents can’t seem to let her grow up—not since the day Oliver disappeared.
Oliver needs a moment to figure out his heart.
He’d thought, all these years, that his dad was the good guy. He never knew that it was his father who kidnapped him and kept him on the run. Discovering it, and finding himself returned to his old hometown, all at once, has his heart racing and his thoughts swirling.
Emmy and Oliver were going to be best friends forever, or maybe even more, before their futures were ripped apart. In Emmy’s soul, despite the space and time between them, their connection has never been severed. But is their story still written in the stars? Or are their hearts like the pieces of two different puzzles—impossible to fit together?

I’ve tried to write this review for going on a week now, not because it’s a bad book or I didn’t want to so I’ve been dodging it, but more because it was such a wonderful, poignant and brilliant book that I don’t quite know (even now) how to adequately  express my feelings and love for it.

Emmy, Oliver and I got along like a house on fire and it was one of the best contemporary fiction novels I have read this year. It quickly shot up to favourite status with the brilliantly real and flawed characters, amusing dialogue and deeper issues lying just beneath the surface of this wonderful book that’s masquerading behind that cover pretending it's nothing more than a sweet romance.

Basically it had everything I love in a book. Sure it had the cute, fluffy romance (which was adorable by the way) but it was so much more than that and tackled some really hard issues head on and in a fantastically relatable way. This book was all about change – it’s a coming of age story, about family and friendships and growing up to be your own person. To just label this book as a romance is to do it a disservice, because it is so much more than that.

The star of the show is most definitely Emmy. Told from her point of view, she’s sarcastic and funny and kind and wonderful and I loved her. It was a brilliant idea to see the outside perspective on the kidnapping so instead of dealing with Oliver’s thoughts and emotions as he tries to come to terms with it all, we see how the event effected those left behind and how they try and put themselves back together upon Oliver’s return. It’s a unique and fascinating view, because it offered us a glimpse into how Oliver’s dealing with via Emmy, but I loved seeing how the other parents and kids reacted in the wake of the event, and how those reactions have had repercussions rippling in the decade since.

Benway tackles a difficult subject at a curved angle, approaching from the side so you’re already drawn in by Emmy and her witty sarcastic outlook on life before she blindsides you with the emotional curveballs. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions which might be too much in some books, but because Benway has created such a wonderful, loveable and realistic cast of characters, it ends up working beautifully gifting you with sweet, touching and vulnerable moments before sucker punching you with some heavy emotional scenes. It’s raw, it’s brilliant, and it’s wrapped up in such a brilliant package that it works seamlessly.

Emmy & Oliver is a new favourite, a book that I will come to again and again, and has kickstarted my burning need to get hold of all of Robin Benway’s books immediately, because if they are anything like this one, I’m going to have a whole host of favourites on my hands.

Review: Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider

Publication Date: June 4^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 336 pages

Huge thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

When he's sent to Latham House, a boarding school for sick teens, Lane thinks his life may as well be over.
But when he meets Sadie and her friends - a group of eccentric troublemakers - he realises that maybe getting sick is just the beginning. That illness doesn't have to define you, and that falling in love is its own cure.
Extraordinary Means is a darkly funny story about true friendships, ill-fated love and the rare miracle of second chances.

I knew very little about this book when I came to it, it was a case of a truly beautiful cover catching my eye and launching straight in, but from the outset I was hooked. I loved the concept - a sanatorium for modern teens struck down by Total Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. It was an idea I haven’t seen before and Schneider tackles the idea with a brilliant mix of humour and grace. You know from the outset that not everyone is going to make it out alive and that leaves a bitter-sweet and poignant feeling as you read that reminds you that life is for living in the moment, not for a possible someday, and this group of teenagers do everything they can to seize the little moments that raise life out of the depressive state that can so easily be sunk into with a long term illness.

The dual narratives were wonderfully handled, offering two very distinct voices to two very different characters. Lane is a driven grade A student, living life for the future and doesn’t know how to deal with the ‘setback’ of his illness. Whilst Sadie has been ill for so long that she can only live one day at a time, the future is an unknown thing that cannot be planned for. They come together to teach each other about seizing each day and living life in a series of moments, rather than planning for a someday future. My only frustration was that Lane didn’t ever seem particularly ‘sick’. He pushes it a little too far at one point and you do see a decline in his health, but compared to the other characters he never seemed to struggle, never really had off days and points where he had to rest. I wanted to see more of that, otherwise it didn’t feel real that he was in this place.

It’s not just about Sadie and Lane though, they are surrounded by a wonderful cast of characters. I really loved getting to see little bits of their characters and how they came together to form a cohesive whole of a group. I could have done with a little more backstory and time on the rest of the friendship group, as it felt more as though they were there to act as a background group rather than an actual set of people with hopes and dreams and wishes.

I loved that the novel had an ‘invisible illness’ at its heart and that it looked not only at how hard it was to live with this on a day to day basis, but also how hard it was to look to the future with the illness constantly lurking in the back of their minds, how that would hinder some plans for the future. But also how others treated those with TB. How some exploited it, how others didn’t know how to deal with it or relate to those stuck in Latham. It was such a refreshing change to have a YA novel tackle something like this, and to do it so well.

If you’re a fan of John Green you’re basically going to love this, it felt a little like a mash-up between ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ and ‘Looking for Alaska’. However non John Green fans will also love this. It’s a fresh and interesting plot, a whole heap of sadness but also ultimately about living each day to the full and not letting life pass you by.