Review: If Only I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman

Audrey's family has fallen apart. Her two grown-up daughters, Jess and Lily, are estranged, and her two teenage granddaughters have never been allowed to meet. A secret that echoes back thirty years has splintered the family in two, but is also the one thing keeping them connected.

As tensions reach breaking point, the irrevocable choice that one of them made all those years ago is about to surface. After years of secrets and silence, how can one broken family find their way back to each other?

Review: I should not have started this book before bedtime because then bedtime ended up being 4am with an alarm set so I could wake up and immediately finish reading this. This book covers so much: Family, friendship, love, loss, grief and honesty. I really didn't know which direction this book was going to turn in next, there is just so much depth and so many hidden messages throughout the novel. 

I loved the family featured in the novel. Audrey is mother to Lily and Jess and grandmother to Mia (Jess's daughter) and Phoebe (Lily's daughter). I love the fact that Audrey's pattern of two daughters is repeated with her having two granddaughters. They live so close to each other and yet are so far apart in so many ways. Although Audrey is the lynch pin of the story, the majority of the time we either see things from Jess's perspective or Lily's but we do sometimes have an Audrey narrative as well, just to add another layer to the events that unfold. 

There is so much grief and loss in this novel in so many different ways and I love the fact that this author shows how loss can affect people so differently and in just so many ways that may not become clear until a long while after the fact. We know that it can affect life choices and either bring people together or drive them apart. And then there is the loss that we can experience even when nobody has died, the loss that we experience through rifts in families or marriages and all of this is explored so tenderly and so beautifully in this novel. I expected to cry a lot but I didn't because I was marvelling at the clever way Hannah Beckerman has woven this novel with its layers and its mirroring of feelings and events, it really is a spectacle. 

I loved the setting of this story with so much of it taking place in one corner of London. It was easy to picture and easy to imagine these characters placed in that setting. There definitely is a care warning for grief and loss in this novel so make sure you are in the right place to do so before picking this one up. These characters became very real to me as I was reading, their lives and their unique perspective of themselves and each other and I imagine that they will stay with me for a while to come. This is a beautiful novel so full of real life and so full of loss but in a very tender and sympathetic way. I definitely recommend adding this one to you TBR now. 

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK (published 21/2) or US (published 10/22)

Review: Final Draft by Riley Redgate

Laila Piedra doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and definitely doesn’t sneak into the 21-and-over clubs on the Lower East Side. The only sort of risk Laila enjoys is the peril she writes for the characters in her stories: epic sci-fi worlds full of quests, forbidden love, and robots. Her creative writing teacher has always told her she has a special talent. But three months before graduation, Laila’s number one fan is replaced by Nadiya Nazarenko, a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist who sees nothing at all special about Laila’s writing.

A growing obsession with gaining Nazarenko’s approval—and fixing her first-ever failing grade—leads to a series of unexpected adventures. Soon Laila is discovering the psychedelic highs and perilous lows of nightlife, and the beauty of temporary flings and ambiguity. But with her sanity and happiness on the line, Laila must figure out if enduring the unendurable really is the only way to greatness.

Review: Wow this book had so many more layers to it than I was expecting. I was expecting a sweet story about someone stepping out of their comfort zone to better their writing because that was their passion. What I got was a coming of age story that covered what it's like to have parents from two different countries from the one you live in, grief, depression, sexual awakening, the pressures of teenage friendship, the pressures of graduation and college and of course making your writing better because that is your passion. 

In case you can't tell I loved this book and was just bowled over by the amount of issues that this author manages to cover in just over 250 pages. For quite a short book, it really packs a punch! I really don't feel like the author was ramming any of these themes down my throat though, they were all interwoven in the story. The characters were diverse and all came from very different backgrounds but I didn't feel like any of them were there for the sake of making the book more diverse, it felt like a natural friendship group and all of their actions felt like things that would happen in real life. 

The writing side of this novel was excellent as well, I think this author was probably writing from experience of trying to perfect a manuscript. I love the fact that Laila was encouraged to step outside of her comfort zone in order to progress and that she did that in a way that would be natural for a teenager. 

Laila was a great character because she is not one of those teens that has it all figured out. She goes through the discovery that you can;'t have it all figured out at the age of 17 or 18. That you might think you know what you want in so many aspects of life but really you don't. I really enjoyed reading about her and going through this story with her. 

This would be a really great book to add to your summer reading list. Do check the synopsis and my breakdown of the themes at the top of this post in case you find any of them triggering first but I really enjoyed this book, it surprised me and I think you would love it too. 

To order your copy now, just click the link: UK or US

Review: We are Okay by Nina LaCour

You go through life thinking there’s so much you need. . . . Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart. 

An intimate whisper that packs an indelible punch, We Are Okay is Nina LaCour at her finest. This gorgeously crafted and achingly honest portrayal of grief will leave you urgent to reach across any distance to reconnect with the people you love.

Review: This book really wasn't what I was expecting it to be. I think I was expecting a much more angsty, issue based read but what I got was beautiful and poetic, dealing with someones issues, yes, but in no way the issues I thought we would be dealing with! The summary of this book says that it deals with grief, but this book deals with grief in a way you wouldn't imagine unless you had lived it and at first I was a little wary of this, but having had time to think about it, this is an extremely clever plot and something which I think is completely unique in the market!

The characters in this book are very interesting too and don't necessary conform to the norms that you might imagine, two girls from the west coast in a university dorm room in New York City might be. I loved that about them. I'm beginning to think that the term 'diverse characters' is getting over used but the characters and the storyline really are diverse in this case.

I listened to this book on audiobook and would really like to see it written down because the writing really was beautiful and poetic, you find yourself forgetting about the storyline sometimes because you are listening to the prose and losing yourself in the description of the settings and the feelings of the characters. The setting description is wonderful, of course, and you can definitely picture yourself walking in Merin's shoes.

The book features time shifts and flashbacks and I think this definitely would have been easier to follow had I been reading this as a physical book and no and audiobook, this was the only part I found difficult, but when Merin is talking about her Grandfather, generally that was in the past and so it was easy to manage by remembering that. I definitely enjoyed this book, given that it was so completely different from my expectations. I think if you are looking for something like the kind of thing Nina LaCour writes with David Levithan, then you will be disappointed, but if you think of this as a unique story in its own rights then this will be a pleasurable read for you.

Click here to get your copy and see for yourself.