Review // Big Bones by Laura Dockrill

Published: 8th March 2018
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Format: Kindle
Synopsis: A heart-warming teen story from the unique voice of Laura Dockrill, about Bluebelle, aka BB, aka Big Bones - a sixteen-year-old girl encouraged to tackle her weight even though she's perfectly happy, thank you, and getting on with her life and in love with food. Then a tragedy in the family forces BB to find a new relationship with her body and herself. Moving, memorable and hilarious.

There has been a lot of buzz in the blogosphere about this one, and rightly so. Laura Dockrill's Big Bones is the first book i've read since Dumplin that focuses on larger girls and body positivity. I would have LOVED all of this new focus on body positivity whilst I was growing up and it's so important that we get this right for our future generations. However maybe it's a little late for me now.

As much as I LOVED the idea of Big Bones and the pitch behind it, I felt like the book itself didn't quite meet my expectations. I thought it would actually be written in a diary-like style but it was just blocks of texts with the heading of a food. It took a long time (too long, honestly) for me to realise that the actually 'diary' part wasn't going to come.

I also didn't find those bites of humour that were promised to me in other reviews and comments from friends. Did I miss something? I found it to be quite heavy given the context of the book and any attempts at humour just flew right past me I guess. I feel like this review is a bit of a downer and it shouldn't be. I DID enjoy the book for what it was, it's just I massively feel like i've missed something compared to other reviews. It wasn't an eye opening masterpiece for me.

The romance was disappointing too. It wasn't necessary and felt like it was only there to scream 'fat girls can be loved too!!!!1!' - nobody wants that. As a fat girl myself, I *know* fat girls can be loved, beautiful, smart, independent etc - being fat has literally nothing to do with any of that and it was a little condescending to have this pointed out in a book about body positivity.

It was however a very quick read, I got through most of it in-between bits and pieces at work. It was interesting and will appeal to a lot of girls out there and I think Big Bones is going to go far in the book world - it just didn't hit the right notes for me.

Review // Sunflowers in February by Phyllida Shrimpton

Published: 8^th February 2018

Publisher: Hot Key Books

Format: e-Book

Synopsis: Lily wakes up one crisp Sunday morning on the side of the road. She has no idea how she got there. It is all very peaceful and beautiful. It is only when the police car, and then the ambulance arrive, and she sees her own body that she realises that she is in fact... dead. But what is she supposed to do now? Lily has no option but to follow her body and see her family - her parents and her twin brother start falling apart. And then her twin brother Ben gives her a once in a deathtime opportunity - to use his own body for a while. But will Lily give Ben his body back? She is beginning to have a rather good time...

Thank you to Hot Key Books for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sunflowers in February is Phyllisa Shrimpton’s debut novel so I didn’t really know what to expect – which is exactly why I couldn’t wait to get started on it. I must admit, a little bit of the draw was how much I love things to match – reading a book with February in the title, *in* February? Yes please! I’m easily amused by small things....

Right from the off the book had me, truly and completely, in its grips. Lily is a flawed character and it’s not tried to be covered up. In fact, it’s her flaws that really make the book what it is – which is a beautiful book that reflects upon a person’s need to discover what it’s like to really live. Lily has to deal with discovering her own dead body and how her absence from the world affects those around her. Often, she has little regard for anyone else’s feelings bar her own but again, this is just one of her flaws that is both acknowledged and worked on throughout the book.

It’s important to point out too, that this isn’t just a book about Lily. It’s about her parents, her twin brother, her friends, and more importantly about the reader. I know that I at least found myself wondering about the differences I have made in people’s lives and whether the life that I lead on a daily basis is one that ultimately will bring me happiness. I don’t mean in a religious way either, just whether i’ll be able to look back and feel like *i’ve* lived the best life I could.

The discovery of Lily’s killer and the consequences of that are just one factor to keep you reading but it isn’t held as a turning point for the book itself, just a turning point for Lily as a character and what she has learned about herself and her life. Though it’s an emotional and sad book, it’s not all inner reflections and a big ol’ cry fest. Of course at the heart of it, that’s what you get, but on the surface it’s a really simple and easy book to read.  Let me a bit less positive for a moment though.

The whole feeling of the book changes at around 3^rd of the way in. The body swapping, other dimensional aspect just felt absurdly strange considering the beautiful heartfelt writing that preceded it.  It got easier to take as the book went further on but at times it felt a little ridiculous and really took the book on a different path. It didn’t lessen the meaning of the book, but I think it will suffer slightly due to the ‘freaky Friday’ feelings that came from it.

Overall though it was a great read. I couldn’t put it down and it’s stayed with me after the fact of reading it which is quite rare these days! I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next for Shrimpton.

Caragh Reviews // Cloud 9 by Alex Campbell

Published - 3rd September 2015
Publisher - Hot Key Books
Format - Paperback
Synopsis - If there was a wonder-drug to make you feel happier, would you take it?  With no side effects, Leata is the perfectly safe pick-me-up! What if everyone you knew had been taking it for years - your teachers, your friends, your family? Leata - helping the country feel more positive! What if your dad was dead-set against the drug and the corporation behind it? Not all questions bring the answers we need!  What if he died? What if you begin to suspect he was killed? What if you've lived your whole life believing in something - only to find out it's a lie?

I'm not sure how this review is going to go, as I still haven't really figured out how I feel about it. When I read what this book was about, I was SO excited to start it. Also, thanks to Holly @ The Arts Shelf for letting me read your copy.

I know there are a few books out there now that boast the same kind of plot and expectations and i'm almost always disappointed - I can't let this idea go and one day i'm truly expecting to be blown away.

Anyway, onwards we go!

I loved that the chapters went back and forth between Hope and Tom. Strangely, I really preferred Tom's chapters than Hope's. I think Hope is really where my problem lies with the book. She's a GREAT character and I really enjoyed her character growth throughout the book. I just really couldn't get behind the whole vlogging, blogging, branding thing that Leata requires. Don't get me wrong, I can totally see how relevant and contemporary it is, I just didn't enjoy it and I really can't put my finger on why that is. YouTube and blogging is so important today (Hello! Blogger here!) but to have that be a very focal point in a book? I just don't think i'm ready for that.

However, there's more to Cloud 9 than Hope's constant internet presence. The mystery surrounding Leata was great. Once I got into it, it honestly kept me turning the pages to find out what Leata is and more importantly, what the big secret was! I was genuinely surprised by the answer too. I enjoyed the relationships between characters and how you never really knew who could be trusted. It was also such a great insight into mental illness.

Personally, I have suffered with depression and anxiety for the past 10 years on and off and Cloud 9 kind of opened my eyes to a bigger picture. Obviously, a lot is being done to combat mental illnesses and take out the stigma that is so often attached. I can see the progress we have made just from a personal perspective but Cloud 9 shows that there is still so much work to be done. The idea of Leata is that it eradicates 'misery' and replaces it with pure 'happiness'. With the use of pills, anyone can be happy! But of course once you've read to the end you know that actually this isn't entirely true. I think the same can be said for things like antidepressants. More effort should be put in to determine the causes of such conditions. In the long run, therapy treatments are way more effective than medication which just masks the real issues to provide a brief feeling of...something else. It's not real happiness.

Overall, it was quite an informative book if you get past the 'fluff' parts. I'd like more of an insight to what happens after the book ends - what the results and consequences were long term but alas, that's what happens when you crave standalone books!

Caragh Reviews // When I Was Me by Hilary Freeman

Published - 3rd September 2015
Publisher - Hot Key Books
Format - Paperback
Synopsis - One girl, two lives. Which is real? When Ella wakes up one Monday morning, she discovers that she is not herself and that her life is not her own. She looks different, her friends are no longer her friends and her existence has been erased from the internet. Even worse, years of her history appear to have been rewritten overnight. And yet, nobody else thinks that anything weird has happened. A tense and dark psychological thriller full of unexpected twists and turns about the random events and decisions that make us who we are. If you can't trust your own memories, then who can you trust?

Shout out to Holly @ The Art Shelf for being the most incredibly and loveliest person and VERY kindly letting me read her copy of When I Was Me that she got from YALC in July - before she'd even read it herself! 

The blurb for this book kind of took my breath away a little bit. On average, I read around 60/70 books a year so i'm sure you can appreciate that finding a book with a subject matter that i've not already seen elsewhere is incredibly rare - but Hilary Freeman managed it! At first it seems as though something very sci-fi is going on and is actually quite chilling. As the book progresses, I found myself getting really anxious and actually had to put it down for 5 minutes whilst I calmed down!

It was quite surprising to me to feel like that, especially as it's not a particularly fast paced book. There's not a great deal of 'plot' going on - which considering the subject matter seems quite strange! A lot of the book focuses on Ella trying to discover who she is, not even because she seems to be in some kind of different world, but in general as a seventeen year old girl. It was actually quite a tense reading experience and raises a lot of psychological questions for the reader.

The blurb mentions something along the lines of 'twists and turns' which I didn't particularly find to be the case until very near to the end. It was an excellent read though and I got through it very quickly because I couldn't wait to find out the answers to the mystery! I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending but that's okay. It worked for me! 
 
The only thing that I really wasn't sure about was Ella and her friends' attitude towards boys and their opinions! For example, whilst talking together about Dom, the girls make a comments that really kind of left my mouth open afterwards. "Boys are never that keen unless they're into you" - this was in response to the girls talking about Dom being attentive, friendly and perceptive towards one of Ella's friends and their surprise that this didn't mean he was romantically attracted to her. I'm probably thinking on it a little too much but it seemed to me like Freeman could have taken this opportunity to be positive about the friendships between boys and girls rather than turn it into questioning the motives of boys.

I'd definitely recommend this book though and as is always the case with Hot Key Books - the cover is absolutely gorgeous! :)