The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree by Paola Peretti

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Pages: 256

Publisher: Hot Key Books 

Released: 9th of August 2018 

Mafalda is a nine-year-old girl who knows one thing: some time in the next six months her sight will fail completely. Can Mafalda find a way through a seemingly dark future and still go to school, play football and look after her beloved cat? With the help of her family, and her friends, Mafalda needs to discover the things that will be important to her when her sight has failed. 

What I Have to Say 

This is a beautiful heart-wrenching story about a girl slowly losing her sight. The way that Mafalda thought about things, her bond with the stories she read and her friendship with the people around her made up for a beautiful unique voice of a young girl. 

The story progresses through Mafalda's life as she slowly loses her eyesight, showing her life in the last six months before her world goes dark. It shows her parents trying to cope with it, moving house, getting everything sorted so that they can provide for her. The friendships she has at school, the long standing one with a janitor who tells her stories of amazon warriors, and new ones beginning to form. There are so many threads to this story that weave together through a young girl's perspective to show a snapshot in her life in such a beautiful way. 

Woven through it all this this beautiful character who loves stories and her cat. She's passionate, brave but most of all scared. And it was that fear and how she coped with it, her transition from a sighted world to one without was such an amazing story to read. 

A perfect book for someone who wants something short, beautiful and truly moving. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Hot Key Books for providing me with this copy for review.