Review: BLANK CANVAS by Marcy Gregg

 

Blank Canvas: The Amazing Story of a Woman Who Awoke from a Coma to a Life She Couldn’t Remember by Marcy Gregg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Marcy Gregg awoke from a coma, 13 years had vanished from her memory.
She was 30 years old; she thought she was still 17. She didn’t recognize the man who introduced himself as her husband. She stared at pictures of the three children they said were hers, trying desperately to remember them, but her mind was blank.

Terrified and confused, Marcy did the only thing she could think of: she faked it. She told the doctors she was starting to remember and bluffed her way through visits from friends and family. Against all odds, it worked: she was released to a home, family, and life she should have known intimately―but seemed to be a stranger’s. How was she going to pull off the biggest acting challenge imaginable―and would her memories ever return?

Ghost Boy meets What Alice Forgot in this amazing true story of a woman who lost herself and tried to fight her way back on her own―but who found unexpected beauty in hope, faith, and second chances.

---

When I heard about this memoir, I was so excited to then get an ARC through NetGalley. I love memoirs and I love chronic illness memoirs. I also love memoirs about motherhood, so this seemed like the perfect book for me. But I just... I didn't like it as much as I thought I was going to.

The storyline was good, well written, well plotted out. But it was more the writing style that I just didn't particularly get on with--though it worked well enough that I was able to finish the book. But I just found myself skipping over and skim-reading a lot of the religious parts. I understand that religion is hugely important to the writer, but I can't personally relate to this, and so I was more interested in the on-page interactions between Marcy and other characters, than her 'letters' to God. There did seem to be a lot of lamentation in these letters, which is understandable. I'm chronically ill and I know the frustration--but I found it laborious to read those parts, maybe because they did hit close to home, in part.

View all my reviews

Review: SUGAR by Carly Nugent

 

Sugar by Carly Nugent
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What’s yours is yours for a reason. Luck has nothing to do with it.

Some people get exactly what they deserve. And, as it turns out, I deserve to be called Persephone. No simple-to-sound-out Pride-and-Prejudice-style name like Elizabeth or Jane for me. Nope. Demi had to go Greek. Define ‘Persephone’. Bringer of destruction. That pretty much sums it up.

Persephone is angry. Angry that her life revolves around finger-prick tests, carbohydrate counts and insulin injections. Angry at Alexander Manson. Angry with her mum for lots of things, for nothing and for everything.
But most of all, she’s angry with herself. For deserving it all. Because of what she did, or didn’t do. Because one year ago she did something and her dad died.
But then Persephone finds a body on a bush path, a young woman she doesn’t know but feels a strong connection to. And as she tries to find out what happened to Sylvia, Persephone begins to understand her own place in the complex interconnectedness of the universe.

Sugar is the story of a sixteen-year-old girl trying to make sense of the life-changing events that have sent her world into a spin, her search for a reason behind it all, and ultimately her acceptance of life’s randomness.

—

I am drawn to books about angry girls. Girls who are hurting. Girls who feel like they deserve bad things. And also anything with chronic illness rep. And this is what drew me to Sugar.

Persephone (I love the name!) is angry. Her father died a year ago, and she feels partly responsible. She’s angry that her body doesn’t work—she has diabetes—and she’s angry at the people around her. Her mother is a complex character, clearly hurting, clearly grieving, and not really being there for Persephone.

And then Persephone discovers a body. It’s a woman, and she feels she knows her. Feels there’s a connection to her. She becomes obsessed with finding out who this woman is and she gains access to her Facebook account—and pretends to be her. She replies to messages as the dead woman and then gets close to the woman’s best friend, who’s also grieving, and was in love with her.

Normally, if I read about a character taking on a dead person’s identity, I wouldn’t feel sympathetic toward them. But with Persephone, you know she’s not doing it maliciously. She’s doing it to try and understand things better. She’s doing it as an outlet for her anger, as a coping mechanism. Her actions make sense.

While Persephone is struggling with identity—her own, her family’s, and that of the dead woman—we also see her struggle with diabetes. She feels she got this illness because of what she did that led to her dad’s death. She sees it as a punishment, and we see her spiral deeper and deeper, refusing to take care of herself.

Other storylines focus around bush fire in Australia that forces her and her family to temporarily leave their home, her cousin’s obsession with wanting a chronic illness of his own (likely due to the trauma he has from being abused by his step dad), Persephone’s ‘relationship’ with a boy and having sex for the first time, and her anger issues at school.

This book was emotionally heavy at times. But it is exactly the type of book I love.

View all my reviews

Review: TOFFEE by Sarah Crossan

 

Toffee by Sarah Crossan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The astonishing new novel from the incomparable, multi-award-winning and Laureate, Sarah Crossan.

I am not who I say I am,
and Marla isn't who she thinks she is.

I am a girl trying to forget.
She is a woman trying to remember.

Allison has run away from home, and with nowhere to live, finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there – and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past called Toffee.

Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.

But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself - where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who am I, really?

----

This novel-in-verse has to be one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking books I've read. The depiction of dementia in it is so truthful and real, and I felt raw reading this book. Several times, it had me crying. It's just so, so real.

And that wasn't the only 'truth' in this book--it spoke a lot about abusive parents and domestic violence, and this just felt like so, so real too. Like, I could feel Allison's pain, and I loved how Crossan still showed how Allison did love her dad, that there were good moments between them, despite how he was abusive toward her.

This book covers a lot of difficult topics: Allison's mother died giving birth to her and her father emotionally neglected her as a child, which only got worse as she got older. There's depictions of violence and abuse, and Allison leaves him, making herself homeless. She travels to Bude (always fun reading a book set in the town near me!) and stumbles upon Marla, an elderly woman with dementia who thinks she's her friend, Toffee. Allison assumes the identity of Toffee in order so she can stay at Marla's house, and in doing so, really comes to care for Marla. Their relationship is just so, so beautiful.

But the whole time, there's this sense of a countdown--that this cannot last forever. Is Allison's dad looking for her? What about the latest of his girlfriends who suddenly left, even though she and Allison were a united front? And what happens when Marla gets too unwell to still be living in her own home? Allison/Toffee can't look after her forever. I won't spoil the ending--but I will say it works. It's satisfying, and it draws everything together.

The other character who has a lot of page-time is Lucy, a girl whom befriends Allison. While their friendship seems innocent at first, it soon becomes clear Lucy is using Allison. She pays her to do her homework, she invites friends over to Marla's house and doesn't respect Allison when she asks them not to break or steal anything. And I thought this inclusion of a one-sided friendship really adds to the many different ways that Crossan explores the toxic nature of man, because there are a lot of depiction of this and unkindness. Allison's dad is the main example, but Lucy parallels him on a smaller level, and then you've also got Marla's son who shows up and is revealed to only be concerned about himself and not really care for his mother. 

But all of this is offset by the tender friendship that Allison and Marla form, albeit Marla never really knows who Allison is. 

There's a lot of sadness in this book, a lot of heartbreak and pain, and I've come to understand that I love sad books. These are the books that just 'get me'. And I love novels-in-verse, and every now and again, I read one that I find so inspiring and that encourages me to work more on my own novels-in-verse. This was just that book. It was so good it was motivating.

The language is just stunningly beautiful. I wanted to fold myself up within these pages and never leave the book.



View all my reviews

Review: NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED by Hannah Moskowitz

 

Not Otherwise Specified by Hannah Moskowitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Etta is tired of dealing with all of the labels and categories that seem so important to everyone else in her small Nebraska hometown.

Everywhere she turns, someone feels she's too fringe for the fringe. Not gay enough for the Dykes, her ex-clique, thanks to a recent relationship with a boy; not tiny and white enough for ballet, her first passion; and not sick enough to look anorexic (partially thanks to recovery). Etta doesn’t fit anywhere— until she meets Bianca, the straight, white, Christian, and seriously sick girl in Etta’s therapy group. Both girls are auditioning for Brentwood, a prestigious New York theater academy that is so not Nebraska. Bianca seems like Etta’s salvation, but how can Etta be saved by a girl who needs saving herself?

The latest powerful, original novel from Hannah Moskowitz is the story about living in and outside communities and stereotypes, and defining your own identity. 

---
So, I'm a bit conflicted in how to review this book. From a craft point of view, it's amazing. The narrative voice is so strong and characterisation is especially good. The writing is addictive and flows well. I read it in two days, and I couldn't stop thinking about this book.

Yet, for me, it also had some pretty big issues. As other reviewers have noted, lesbians don't come off in this book particularly well. They're presented as a cult and called 'the Dykes'. They're also the violent bullies in this book. I feel if we'd just had one lesbian character who wasn't like this, then that would've solved a lot of the problems. But this representation made me uneasy.

And then there's the eating disorder stuff. I'm studying eating disorders in YA fiction for part of my postgrad work. The representation of the actual eating disorder is well-done. It's not romanticised, and it feels real. It's also great having a character who's already in recovery, who's gained weight, and is doing well in the general lay-of-the-land type of thing, but who we also see still struggling. Because those thoughts don't just go away. I could relate to this a lot.

But I had an issue with race representation in this book. As part of my postgrad work, I've been looking specifically at BIPOC representation in eating disorder YA fiction. Traditionally, EDs have always been seen as a white woman's illness, so BIPOC rep is important--especially when in the medical field many doctors still expect Black women to be bigger and more comfortable with being curvier than white women and therefore getting diagnosed with an eating disorder as a Black person is arguable harder, according to interviews/research. There are many memoirs from BIPOC authors about how race doesn't determine whether you get an eating disorder, or how disciplined you are in the eating disorder, but that race does prejudice some doctors against you if you're BIPOC, making it harder for you to seek help. And unfortunately, for me, this novel sort of conformed to some of the stereotypes. Etta is constantly described as 'chubby' and someone who doesn't look like she has an eating disorder--which is fine and true for many people with EDs, but this novel only has Etta, the Black character with an ED, presented in this way. All other characters with EDs in this are white and are presented as much thinner, as they have the discipline to starve themselves in a more superior way.

This novel is own-voices for eating disorders and bisexuality, but the author is white (she describes herself as a white Jewish girl), and I couldn't help but think that some of the bias and constructs around race and biological determinism have influenced her as she wrote about a Black ballerina with an ED who's 'chubbier' than the white girls with EDs. Given that there are so few books out there about BIPOC girls with eating disorders, (and there really should be more!), I worry that this one could reinforce stereotypes in some readers who just won't question it and believe that race does determine how you'll experience an ED.

But this is a great novel.

View all my reviews

Review: ALL YOUR TWISTED SECRETS by Diana Urban

 

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This thrilling debut, reminiscent of new fan favorites like One of Us Is Lying and the beloved classics by Agatha Christie, will leave readers guessing until the explosive ending.

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.

Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

------

I already know this is going to be one of my top reads of 2021. It's PHENOMENAL.

I love locked room mysteries. And I love escape room mysteries. I love stories about friendships--especially when those friendships turn bad. I love unlikeable female characters. I love unreliable narrators. And I love alternating timelines. This book has it all. I mean, I was almost afraid that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but this book is phenomenal. Truly spectacular.

The book starts with Amber invited to a restaurant to meet the mayor, as she's got a scholarship. Also invited are her boyfriend Robbie, her former best friend Priya, her current friend Sasha, the school drug-dealer Scott, and Diego, who is the boy Amber now likes. When the six get to the restaurant, they're trapped. The door locks, and they can't get out. Then Amber discovers a bomb with a one-hour countdown and a syringe. Instructions tell them that the syringe contains poison and they must choose one person to die before the hour's up, else the bomb will kill them all. Cue: panic.

But how amazing is this set up? So, the narrative alternates between them in this one-hour countdown as they panic and try to think of ways out, and scenes from the last year or so. We get to know the characters, and gradually the past scenes reveal huge secrets--secrets that are then brought up in the current timeline as the characters turn on each other, as they try to work out who to die.

And this is where we see that all these characters are complex. They've all got secrets, all got flaws--it's amazing writing.

The next part of my review contains spoilers, so be warned!

Amber is our main character. She's hugely talented with music and she's also still grieving over her older sister's death. Maggie took her own life after being bullied for about a year by an unknown girl.

Sasha is the queen bee of the school. We see her befriend Amber, and readers can immediately tell that Sasha is using Amber. But Amber can't see this at the time, and it was infuriating! We could see exactly what was going on. But in the present timeline, Amber's very aware of who Sasha really is--but she doesn't expect for more secrets to be revealed in the bomb's countdown, namely that Sasha is the girl who bullied Maggie, causing Maggie to commit suicide.

Priya is Amber's former best friend. She was also initiated into Sasha's popular group when Sasha befriended Amber, but Sasha bullied Priya too in the same way she'd already bullied Maggie (and she knew what happened to Maggie, too). The bullying in this storyline culminates in Priya having her front teeth knocked out and Sasha sharing a video of it to the whole school. Priya then drops Sasha as a friend, and also Amber.

Next we have Robbie. He's Sasha's best friend and becomes Amber's boyfriend. He's a nice enough guy--until he believes that his dreams and ambitions are more important than Amber's. Then he becomes a bit of dick.

Diego is Amber's friend from when she was a child. The two fell out after Diego invented a colour-changing sponge and Diego's father resigned from Amber's father's business, causing it to fold. Diego is also extremely intelligent, and we see how Sasha is in direct competition with him for getting into Harvard. Sasha does her best to sabotage Diego at every opportunity, no matter the consequence.

And last is Scott. He's the stoner of the school, and he at first seems out of place being invited to the restaurant--it's believable to Amber that all the others have been invited there to celebrate their scholarships, but not Scott.

So, this is the set-up. (And even more spoilers ahead now). As the hour passes, the characters turn on each other and several get injured. When trying to break the windows to escape, Scott falls and breaks his ankle. Priya is hypoglycemic and passes out at one point, but Diego revives her.

The writing is so good that I kept working out what I'd do if I was in this situation. Faking a death seemed like an obvious thing to do, but it took the characters a long time to decide to do this.

And as the time is running out and they're all convinced they have to kill someone, Amber manages to turn everyone against Sasha so she is the one who gets injected with the syringe of poison.

At which point, they discover that the poison isn't real! I mean, to be honest, I was thinking that would have to happen. But Sasha, still alive, turns on the others. She attacks Amber, and she tries to kill her. Amber is saved by Priya, who stabs Sasha with a shard of glass from the window in self-defense. And Sasha dies.

And at this point, my eyes were so wide as I was reading (well, listening, as I had the audiobook, which has fantastic narration!). They'd literally killed one of the group. And still the bomb was counting down.

When the time runs out, and they're all alive, it's so tense. They hear footsteps and this was the part where I really had no idea who had orchestrated all this--which, I must admit, is unusual. I read a lot of YA thrillers and usually have some sort of idea. But I was flummoxed. And it's a delivery driver who lets them out. He's been instructed to deliver a cake to the room with a message telling them that they now know who each other are.

This writing--it's just so amazing. Tense. I was on the edge of my seat. (I actually had to stop listening at this point, as I had to get off the bus, and I was desperate to keep listening!).

And then we have the timeline going to four hours ago--and we get the huge reveal. Amber set all this up!!!! So, I didn't see it coming--even though one of the past scenes ends with Amber wanting to get revenge on Sasha. But I trusted Amber as she's our first person narrator. I believed her when she said she didn't know what was going on.

But then the pieces started to slot into place. Amber was the one who found the bomb in the room. All the people in the room were connected most strongly to Amber. And this is a story of revenge. It's a story of Amber wanting to teach Sasha a lesson--it wasn't supposed to end up with murder, but it did. It's Priya getting revenge on Sasha for the bullying--though Priya only stabs Sasha to stop her killing Amber. It's just...wow. That reveal--that Amber was behind it all--changed my whole view on her. I didn't know what to think anymore. I was totally blown away. Absolutely blown away. And it made Amber unlikeable. She was going to get away what was basically murder--even if she'd not intended to kill. But then Amber feels guilt. She goes to turn herself in, and is stopped by Priya and Diego.

It really is a story about the power of friendship and how toxic teenagers can be. It's a story of cold, calculated revenge. A story of secrets being revealed and the lengths that people will go to in order to keep them.

Highly recommended.

There are lot of trigger warnings for this book: suicide, drugs, bullying, abuse, implied school shooting at one point, potential for eating disorder survivors to be triggered by some of the bullying language used toward Priya.

View all my reviews

Review: FULL DISCLOSURE by Camryn Garrett

 

Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In a community that isn't always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self-acceptance when she falls in love--and lust--for the first time. Powerful and uplifting, Full Disclosure will speak to fans of Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon.

Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time things will be different. She's making real friends, making a name for herself as student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she's HIV-positive, because last time . . . well, last time things got ugly.

Keeping her viral load under control is easy, but keeping her diagnosis under wraps is not so simple. As Simone and Miles start going out for real--shy kisses escalating into much more--she feels an uneasiness that goes beyond butterflies. She knows she has to tell him that she's positive, especially if sex is a possibility, but she's terrified of how he'll react! And then she finds an anonymous note in her locker: I know you have HIV. You have until Thanksgiving to stop hanging out with Miles. Or everyone else will know too.

Simone's first instinct is to protect her secret at all costs, but as she gains a deeper understanding of the prejudice and fear in her community, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above is to face the haters head-on...

--

This is an amazing book (and it's got amazing narration too--I read it as an audiobook), and I can't stop thinking about it. You know, every now and then you come across a book that's so so so important, that you know is a significant book that you just want to make everyone read? Well, this is it.

I've been looking for more books with chronically ill main characters, and Simone (the MC) is HIV positive. She was born with the virus, as her birth mother had it and was untreated, and as a baby Simone was really unwell. Now, however, she's got her viral load under control, so she's not actually unwell with HIV in this book. Instead, this book is about how Simone's navigating her first relationship with a boy--while believing she is probably bisexual--and she's directing her first play. But there's someone in her school who knows she's HIV positive, and they're determined to make things hard for her, threatening to reveal her secret if she doesn't break up with Miles.

I'll confess--before this book, I knew practically nothing about HIV. I wasn't even taught about it at school, and reading this was eye-opening. I learnt so much, and I'm kind of horrified by how schools hadn't taught this. For example, I didn't know there were medications that could make the viral load undetectable, and when it's undetectable it's untransmissible.

This book tackles the stigma around HIV. We see Simone as she's bullied by a classmate, threatened with having her secret exposed for all, and we see how her close friends and boyfriend react when she tells them she's positive. We know that she's already moved school before when people found out--and parents of other kids were petitioning for her to be taught separately to their children--and we see first-hand the awful way she's treated because of others' lack of knowledge and understanding.
The person threatening to expose her secret does indeed do exactly this--and then we see again how she is treated, this time with social media being hugely involved.

But this book isn't just about HIV. It's about Simone who wants to be theatre director, it's about her finding her identity and accepting herself. At its heart, it's a cute love-story (one of the best I've read), and it's also got thriller elements, with the unknown person trying to blackmail Simone.

It's also about sex--a lot. Although there's no actual sex scenes, there's a lot of discussion about it, not just about how Simone needs to be careful due to having HIV, but there's also general rhetoric on safe sex, on exploring sexual desires for the first time.

This book also has a lot of diversity. Simone and Miles are both Black. Claudia, one of Simone's best friends, is asexual, and Lydia (the other best friend) is bisexual. Simone is also bisexual. Then we've got Simone's parents--they're in a same-sex marriage, and one is Black and the other Mexican. Jesse, one of the Simone's classmates, is gay. There's just so much diversity in this.

This is a highly recommended read, and it's a great way for me to finish 2020.

View all my reviews

Review: A WORLD WITHOUT YOU by Beth Revis

 

A World Without You by Beth Revis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Seventeen year old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time. When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his concerned parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he's actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have 'superpowers.' At Berkshire, Bo falls in love with Sofia, a quiet girl with a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility. Sofia helps Bo open up in a way he never has before. In turn, Bo provides comfort to Sofia, who lost her mother and two sisters at a very young age. But even the strength of their love isn't enough to help Sofia escape her deep depression. After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she's not actually dead. He believes that she's stuck somewhere in time - that he somehow left her in the past, and now it's his job to save her.

A World Without You is a complex and heartbreaking read, but for me it lacked that extra bit of power that would've made it a 5-star read.

So, we've got Bo who's at a special school for teenagers with severe mental illness and behavioural challenges, only Bo believes he's actually got superpowers and that the school is a place for other people like him. Through his eyes, we meet his classmates and learn of the 'powers' he believes they have. The writing is actually incredible as even from Bo's narrative, I could tell which problems the other characters at the academy had, even though we're immersed in Bo's very distorted view of the world.

Before the book begins, Bo's girlfriend has died, and Bo spend the majority of this book believing that she's not really dead, that she's stuck in time somewhere--because the superpower he believes he has is that he can travel through time and manipulate time. It's honestly heartbreaking reading how he's 'going back in time' constantly searching for Sofia, believing he can save her--when readers know what his reality is.

The writing is also really strong and narrative style is sufficiently different between the two POV characters, Bo and his sister Phoebe. Phoebe's chapters are very different to Bo's--she's grounded in the real world and we see the impact that Bo has on her. There's a lot of discourse on the impact that mental illness has on the family unit as a whole, and we see how Bo's institutionalisation shapes Phoebe and their parents. But I did find this was a little repetitive. Beth Revis has both her narrative POV characters lament A LOT about how Phoebe and Bo's relationship is not a typical relationship. And this was starting to annoy me as I read it. Mentioning it once per narrating character--or even twice--would've done the job, but it's mentioned so much that I began to feel like it was just too repetitive. And this slowed down the pacing for me, particularly in the first two-thirds of the book.

There was also one thing that I didn't particularly like regarding the family dynamics which was made quite obvious via Phoebe's chapters--and that is how her chapters present Bo as a burden on his family. As a disabled and chronically ill reader, this was something that really disappointed me. I mean, obviously, it's just Phoebe's opinion--and she's bearing the grunt of a lot of Bo's illness in the family dynamic as she's now got to be the 'perfect' child and isn't allowed to mess up at all--but I was hoping that there'd be something later to call Phoebe out on this 'Bo is a burden' notion.

The tension develops well across the book--and although the pacing and tension doesn't really change across Phoebe's chapters, you can really see it building to the climax with Bo's. For that reason, from 70% onward, I couldn't put this book down. That's where we see the accumulation of everything: Bo's illness, his grief and refusal to admit Sofia is dead, the pressure that Phoebe's under. There were several moments near the end where my heart was in my mouth, where I couldn't truly believe that what I thought had happened had actually happened. It was heart-wrenching and exhausting to read, but in a good way.

On the whole, this book has a good depiction of mental illness, if the whole burden issue is overlooked. But it's an important read and I still rate it 4 stars because of the strength of the writing and plot.

View all my reviews

Review: WILDER GIRLS by Rory Power

Wilder Girls by Rory Power
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everyone loses something to the Tox; Hetty lost her eye, Reese's hand has changed, and Byatt just disappeared completely.

It’s been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put in quarantine. The Tox turned the students strange and savage, the teachers died off one by one. Cut off from the mainland, the girls don’t dare wander past the school’s fence where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure as the Tox takes; their bodies becoming sick and foreign, things bursting out of them, bits missing.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her best friend, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie in the wilderness past the fence. As she digs deeper, she learns disturbing truths about her school and what else is living on Raxter Island. And that the cure might not be a cure at all... 

---

Gah, this book!!!!!

I've had it on my kindle for over a year, and I wasn't sure why I hadn't yet read it, so one day I picked it up, not expecting to be totally grabbed by it...and I didn't surface until I'd finish it. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration as I read it in sections across about a week. But I truly felt like I was never leaving this book every time I paused. I was so caught up in this world, and I felt like I was living in it. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It's amazing. Even if I was reading about a pandemic during a real global pandemic... 

Hetty, Byatt, and Reese are at the Raxter school, an all-girls school, on an island, when the Tox breaks out and they're all in quarantine, unable to leave. The Tox is a brutal illness--and it marks its victims in different ways, if they survive it at all. Hetty lost an eye to it, Byatt's got problems with her spine, and Reese has got a scaled hand. And pretty much every character has some sort of disability from it. And I wasn't expecting the disability rep to be great, I'll be honest--but it really is. As a disabled reader, I was so delighted to see this. All the characters in this book are disabled and badass. I loved it!

And Miss Welch--can we just talk about her for a moment? Her characterisation is wonderful. I was really hating her (spoiler ahead--skip to next paragraph to avoid it!) and then there's that amazing reveal where all her actions that make us hate her suddenly make sense, and we learn who the real villain of the book is.

Talking of great reveals--the way we learn info about what the Tox is and what is really going on on Raxter island is just great.

The writing in this book is incredible. It's almost stream-of-consciousness in places, just sooooo immersive and beautifully written. It's told in dual POV between Hetty and Byatt, and even their narrative voices are so distinct, despite both being written in this immersive way.

And the romance. This is such a great LGBT book with romance between Hetty and Reese (I'll be honest, I didn't see that coming as there's a real closeness between Hetty and Byatt, but it felt so natural.) I think Reese is my fave character though. There's something fierce and prickly about her. She's not as easy to like, and I love that.

The only thing that surprised me about this book is the ending... Like, is there going to be a sequel??? Because the (and another spoiler here!) whole book is about beating the Tox, and that just...doesn't happen. It feels like we've got the set up for at least another book. This one finishes with Hetty and Reese escaping the island, but it doesn't feel like the story's over yet. I really hope there's a sequel.

View all my reviews

Review: IN A PICKLE OVER PANDAS by Melanie S. Weiss

In A Pickle Over PANDAS by Melanie S. Weiss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this picture book on PANDAS mainly as research to see how picture books tackle medical issues such as PANDAS and the level of detail into which they go into. I myself am an adult with PANS (similar to PANDAS) and I've written a lot of articles on my experiences with PANS, but these are all aimed at adults. So I was interested to see how a children's picture book would tackle it.

This book does go into a lot of detail about PANDAS--more than I thought it would do for this age range, but it is all necessary and important info (from my perspective as an adult). However, I do wonder if it's really suitable for children of the intended age range for the readership. It does get very technical, and it does have some pretty scary illustrations representing the mental health symptoms that PANDAS can cause. 

But, then again, if a parent is buying this for their child, chances are the child is going to have PANDAS and the book is being used as a tool to help explain the illness to the child, so the child would already be familiar with the symptoms. Therefore I think this book is more suitable for children who already have PANDAS rather than children who don't. But it is still important reading for parents as the more knowledge they have of neuropsychiatric disorders such as PANDAS and PANS the better, especially when these disorders are often misdiagnosed.

View all my reviews

Review: UNCOMFORTABLY NUMB by Meredith O'Brien

Uncomfortably Numb: a memoir by Meredith O'Brien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

About losing one’s life as it was once imagined, and the ultimate, uneasy peace that’s achieved with the permanent uncertainty which accompanies living with a chronic illness.

It begins with numbness on her left leg. Then it spreads. Even though an MRI finds a “mass” on her brainstem, it takes two more years for Meredith O’Brien to learn what is causing that numbness. Months after her 65-year-old mother dies from a fast-moving cancer, weeks after her father is hospitalized and she experiences an unexpected job change, she learns she has multiple sclerosis.

Suddenly, Meredith, a married mother of three teens, has to figure out how to move forward into a life she no longer recognizes. 

Reimagining her life as a writer and an educator, as a mother and a spouse, she has to adjust to the restrictions MS imposes on her. 

It is a life, altered.

--

Wow, this memoir--it's just... wow.

I've had my eye on Uncomfortably Numb for quite a while. Back when I was researching medical memoirs (sometime around October 2019), this one was recommended to me. And I was just so excited to read it.

Fast forward to March 2020, and what with the Covid-19 outbreak, I decided to set up #BookPartyChat on Twitter, to celebrate the releases of books where events had been cancelled. And when Meredith O'Brien, author of Uncomfortably Numb, got in touch, I was so happy. Talking to her for an hour about this memoir was a dream come true!

A couple of days before our interview, I started this memoir. And I just couldn't read it fast enough.

It tells Meredith's story as she develops alarming symptoms and is later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

I'll admit, I didn't know much about MS before reading this memoir. Everything I did know was either on a super basic level or based on media portrayal, which isn't always that great (and is something I've written on before). Uncomfortably Numb taught me so much about what MS is--or at least what it is for Meredith. Of course, like many chronic illnesses, it's so individual and dependent on the person.

At times, this book was quite a tough read. It was harrowing in places. And I saw myself--as a chronic illness sufferer--in these pages so much. Especially when Meredith talks about how doctors didn't believe her, wrote her symptoms off as anxiety, and refused to take her seriously at times. Meredith also examines how females often aren't taken seriously by medical professionals--another thing I've encountered myself. Thus, while I do not have MS, this memoir has so many relatable moments.

It's also not just about MS. We get a glimpse into Meredith's wider life and other events going on during this time (after all, illness isn't an isolated incident--it affects everything). This book covers her mother's death, her teaching at university, her experiences as a grad student, and the publication of a book. We get to know her husband and children, her friends and colleagues. And everything just feels so real.

The writing craft itself in this book is really good too. Stylistically, Meredith's writing flows and just demands to be read. I've read quite a few medical memoirs, but I have to say, I think this is one of the best, and I'll be recommending it for years to come.

View all my reviews

Review: ALL I KNOW by Tamara Lush

All I Know by Tamara Lush
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

From the author of Constant Craving comes a hilarious story about a woman who feels obligated to care for everyone, a sexy Marine who wants to make his first love his forever bride, and a fake wedding proposal that changes everything.

Kate Cooper has come home to Paradise Beach to help her mom recover from surgery. After all, who else is going to run the family's tiki bar? A few months on a Florida island won't hurt, even if her memories might.

Then Damien Hastings, her high school crush, walks into the bar one night. He's stunning. Intense. Way more muscular than when they were in high school. And can't take his eyes off Kate.

When Damien finds out Kate needs health insurance, he does what any gentleman would: ask her to marry him. He's going to Syria for a year as a military contractor, and he's loved her for years. It's the least he can do.

They didn't return to fall in love. They didn't expect to have the best sex of their lives. They didn't plan on a farting dog or a fake engagement. But strange and wonderful things happen on Paradise Beach...

Content warning: medical conditions, parent with cancer, heroine experienced bullying in high school.

ALL I KNOW is the prequel to Tamara Lush's Paradise Beach Series. They are all standalone romantic comedies and can be read in any order. If you adore hilarious banter, second chances, and steamy sexytimes, this is the book for you!

--

As a fan of the first book in this series, I decided to give the prequel a go after finishing it. I already knew the details of Kate and Damien’s relationship from book 1, but I was pleasantly surprised by just how much extra this novella provides the reader with. Kate and Damien become even more developed, with their love seeming more believable in this novella.

There was also a lot more sex in this novella—with it being more explicitly described than book 1–but it works, given that Kate and Damien certainly seem more sex-orientated in this novella than Lauren and Max. This is something that surprised me as from reading book 1, I hadn’t thought they had the more physical relationship.

This book does have chronic illness rep in it, which really excited me (as someone who's chronically ill) but I'd have liked to see this explored a little more on the page. One of Kate's hospital appointments is simply skipped over and we don't see a lot of the day-to-day life of being chronically ill, which I was hoping for. Especially in a romance.

I liked how the end of the novella overlapped with book 1, however as soon as we got to the overlapping parts, the writing and pacing seemed very rushed. There was less characterisation for Damien and Kate in this section, and I didn’t feel like we got much “extra” in this part. Also, I noticed that Max and Lauren (The main characters of Book 1) seemed very 2D in this book compared to Kate and Damien, so I’m not sure whether completely new readers would warm to them and want to read their book quite as much.

View all my reviews

Review: BRAIN ON FIRE by Susannah Cahalan

An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.

When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.

My rating: 5 stars

Brain on Fire tells the story of Post journalist Susannah Cahalan, a seemingly healthy twenty-four-year-old as she is struck down with a variety of strange symptoms--seizures, obsession with bedbugs, flu, and hallucinations to name a few--and follows her frightening battle to get diagnosed.

I picked up this book shortly after I was diagnosed with a neuropsychiatric illness and had started writing my own memoir. I wanted to see how Susannah had written hers, and I'd already seen the Netflix adaptation of Brain on Fire, which I thought had been well done.

Like Susannah, I struggled to get a diagnosis and my problems were also assumed to be solely psychological at one point. I related so much to so many things she went through.

This book is wonderfully written. It's poignant and gives a thorough insight into what exactly Susannah experienced--even though a lot of it, she admits she can't remember. Instead, the passages around her month in hospital have been constructed from interviews, tape recordings, and diary entries her family made. Yet this passage is still told in first person. As such, when Susannah describes having a brain biopsy, there was something a little unnerving about hearing each step that was performed, but narrated by her, in first-person. It brought me out of the story a little.

There's a fair bit of medical terminology and medical explanations in here, and at times I found it a little dense. But it really helped to paint a good picture of this illness, and I'd highly recommend it.

Review: WE WERE LIARS by E. Lockhart

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

We are the Liars.
We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury.
We are cracked and broken.
A story of love and romance.
A tale of tragedy.
Which are lies?
Which is truth?

--

I’ve heard so much about We Were Liars by E. Lockhart and it’s one of those books where I was almost nervous to read it because I didn’t think it could live up to my now high expectations of it. But it did, and it surpassed them.

This is a dark, twisty contemporary story about friendship, forbidden love, dark secrets, guilt, blame, and a family that is both loving and toxic. It’s skilfully written and kept me eagerly turning the pages.

There are a lot of characters in this book, and it took me a while to remember who was who and work out the familial relations. We’ve got multiple timelines too, as the story is told in Cadence’s present day, as well as at least the summers of the last two years. These timelines have been wonderfully slotted together, and we meet Cody before and after her accident, and really want to discover what happened along with her (she has selective amnesia).

The characterisation was wonderful. I really felt like I knew each of the Liars, the four main characters. They felt like real people.

The twist ending? Well, I can’t say too much because of huge spoilers—but I did NOT see that coming. And due to a friend telling me that there was a huge twist, I was already on the lookout, yet E. Lockhart still managed to blow me away. I was speechless, yet the reveal felt right. It felt natural for the story, and I could easily see how the signs were there—I’d just interpreted them incorrectly.

There’s also something lyrical about the writing, and not only does it really match Cady’s troubled voice, but it also spoke to me on an inner level. I realise how weird that sounds, but I don’t know how else to say it. This book felt like it was letting me in on a secret as I read it, and I felt privileged to discover the story.

This may be the first book I’ve finished in 2019, but I already know it’s going to be one of my top reads this year.