I had planned to have a few more books to discuss in this first installment. Technically, I have finished a few more. However, as you will see in the next post, I read quite a few books for the “Gala of Peace” aka a 48 hour readathon that’s part of Realmathon so I have a bit of a backlog to get through before I can continue with reviews. For now, here are reviews of the four books from the middle grade long list that I read prior to the readthon.
I should have written this review a lot closer to when I read the book since it took a little more work than I expected to refresh my memory. In this book, the main character, Pearl, has to navigate her family’s expectations – a preference for math and computer rather than the crochet amigarumi she loves, fear of losing her favorite boba shop due to financial troubles of the owner, and friendship issues caused by her own
poor decisions. Those poor decisions made Pearl a relatable but frustrating character because the reader could clearly see the ways she kept making the wrong decision and messing up. Ultimately, she begins to learn lessons from the consequences of these decisions. This was a fine book but a tad bit disappointing because of the expectations I had prior to starting the read.
I enjoyed this book a lot more than I would have expected had I read the synopsis prior to starting my read. Some of this book requires a little more suspension of disbelief than others but I think Jortner made it work. The main character, Lauren, who goes by Mouse, has spent over 100 days hiding and surviving in an amusement park after her mom purposefully leaves her alone in the park. Since she’s tall for her age, she survives
by pretending to work sweeping and cleaning areas of the park. Jortner lays some clues that perhaps someone is looking out for her before things come to a head on the 102nd day. First, someone appears to recognize her. Then, a sudden severe thunderstorm which spawns at least one tornado, hits the park bringing Lauren head to head with the girl that recognizes her and puts them in a situation where they, along with Lauren’s best friend, the son of a bigwig in the park, are trapped in a potentially unsafe location. Like I mentioned, some of the plot events require a lot of suspension of disbelief. However, Lauren as a character feels like a real person, making realistic decisions based on the cards life has dealt her.
This is not an easy book to read but written so well. It also provides a voice to a perspective that often goes tragically overlooked. The author draws on his personal experience to help the main character, Jake, tell his story of recovery from an eating disorder triggered by familial mental health issues and horrible yet terribly common bullying at school combined with his own mental illness that negatively contributed to the whole process. I
would definitely loudly proclaim trigger warnings since the author is read and raw through every page. This story helps those, like me, who have never struggled with disordered eating gain empathy those who struggle in this way. This is an intensely powerful read.
This story read, unfortunately, incomplete. I appreciated both stories but they read like nearly completely separate stories save for the initial conflict and the final resolution. This could potentially confuse the reader if they had based their expectations on the synopsis which implies that the two titular characters interact far more than they actually do. The book tackles some interesting topics but it felt too surface level
for my tastes. Then came the ending. That definitely left a mild bad taste in my mouth with how abruptly the author wrapped everything up.
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