Pog by Pádraig Kenny

Synopsis (from Goodreads and Chicken House) 

Pages: 288

Publisher: Chicken House Books 

Released: 4th of April 2019 

David and Penny arrive in a strange new home in a forest. Other creatures live here – magical creatures – like Pog. He’s one of the First Folk, tasked with protecting the boundary between the worlds. But David is drawn into the forest, lured by a darker entity, who tells him there’s a way he can bring his dead mother back …

What I Have to Say 

Pog was a really well written tale, full of deep themes of grief and loss. I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as Tin, though I felt this a really fun story. I think Pog is a great character who will appeal a lot to the kids reading this book. He's very quite with an interesting way of talking, but he's also got so many other attributes. He's a fierce protector who quickly grows to care for the family living in the house. He also has his own emotions and history which complement the grief felt by the family a lot. 

David and Penny were also great characters. You could really feel love between the family and between the kids and Pog by the end. You could feel the loss of their mother and how much it was driving them into their own forms of grief. 

I really love Kenny's way of bringing such deep personal issues into a magical adventure story and how he brings everything back to the theme without it seeming like he's pushing the issue. 

It's a very authentic story filled with adventure and emotion. 

My thanks go to Chicken House for providing me with this free copy for review. 

The Year After You by Nina de Pass

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 352

Publisher: Ink Road 

Released: 14th of February 2019 

New Years’ Eve, San Francisco. The most promising party of the year ends in a tragic accident. Cara survives. Her best friend Georgina doesn’t.

Nine months later, Cara is struggling, consumed by guilt and grief. Her mum decides a Swiss boarding school will be the fresh start Cara needs. But Cara knows that swapping sunshine for snow won’t make a blind bit of difference. Georgina is gone, and nothing will bring her back.

Up in the Alps, Cara’s old life feels a million miles away. At Hope Hall, nobody knows about her past. And she intends to keep it that way. But classmates Ren and Hector have other ideas. Cara tries to keep her distance, but she’s drawn to the offbeat, straight-talking Hector, who understands her grief better than anyone. Her new friends are determined to break down the walls she has so carefully built up. And, despite it all, Cara wants them to. 

The closer Cara grows to Hector, the more Georgina slips away. Embracing life at Hope Hall means letting go of the past; of her memories of that fatal New Year’s Eve. But Cara is quite sure she doesn’t deserve a second chance. 

What I Have to Say 

Exploring the themes of grief, loss and survivors guilt, this touching novel explores how deep the damage of losing someone in an accident can be. It deals heavily with the responsibility that someone can attribute to themselves when something like this happens and how moving on can feel like betraying the person you lost. 

The best thing about this book for me was how it showed that fears can sometimes not seem logical to an outside viewpoint. Cara is terrified of going in lifts and cars, because her mind tells her that if it crashes then it's her responsibility because she got in the car. This is the way that the mind can twist things based on past experiences, but de Pass when deeper, exploring the fact Cara is completely fine with planes. I've experienced this kind of logic in my own condition with my OCD a lot. People don't understand why this is fine but /this/ isn't. It's something that's hard to understand. So it made me feel really understood to see a similar twisting of logic and fear shown in The Year After You. 

I loved Cara so much as a character. I loved her interactions with Hector and with Ren. It was heartbreaking to see her story and the way that her fears and grief from the past controlled her. It all felt very real and well thought out. 

There's so much more I haven't said in this review, but these are the parts that really touched me.  I really, really recommend getting a copy and seeing Cara's story for yourself. 

My thanks go to Ink Road and Netgalley for providing me with this free copy for review. 

Mind the Gap by Phil Earle

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 104 

Publisher: Barrington Stoke Ltd. 

Released: 5th of January 2017 

When Mikey's dad died, something in Mikey died too. He loved his old man and he never stopped dreaming that one day his dad would land the role of a lifetime, prove them all wrong, and rock back up to the estate in the flashiest car anyone had ever seen. Now there's just numbness, and not caring, and really, really stupid decisions. He says the worst of it is that he can't even remember his dad's voice any more. Eventually Mikey's best mate can't bear it any more, and so he sets out to give Mikey the memories - and his dad's voice - back

What I Have to Say 

This is a really touching story of the extent that a boy will go for his friend. It shows the extent that grief can wrap people up in and swallow them into depression. 

I have to admit that I wasn't too keen on most of the story. I'm not so fond of stories about thugs and thieves, but it was entertaining and there were many characters with different attitudes and personalities, each effected by Mikey's father and reluctant to help. 

The ending was the best part in my opinion. It was solved in such a simple but cool way and the story that inspired it was so sweet. 

Though it wasn't really my thing, I really did enjoy this books. 

My thanks go to Barrington Stoke and Nina Douglas to providing me with this copy for review. 

Not If I See You First by Eric Lindstrom

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 416

Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books 

Released: 31st of December 2015 

Parker Grant doesn't need perfect vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances.

When Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart, suddenly reappears at school, Parker knows there's only one way to react – shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough to deal with already, like trying out for the track team, handing out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened – both with Scott, and her dad – the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem.

What I Have to Say 

This is a book that really hits you with how hard it can be to be blind, not just the obvious lack of sight, but the way that even good intentioned people treat the blind. Her list of rules and entire attitude towards people show how hard it's been for her without much need to say it outright. It's really easy to see how her defenses have grown around her over the years.

Despite how pessimistic Parker's attitude is, I really liked her. Her voice was interesting and sassy, making it really enjoyable to read, even if her humour was dark. She felt real in a way that opened your eyes, rather than making you especially sympathetic. It made you see her as a real person that you might want to be friends with. It would have been easy for the writer to have tried to make the reader feel sorry for her and leave her as just the "blind girl", which is precisely what Parker spends the book trying not to be.

This is more than just a book about a blind girl. This is a book about grief and suppressing emotions, about making mistakes and having to own up to them. It's a great step for diversity and so much more.

My thanks go to Netgalley and Harper Collins Children's Books for providing me with a copy to review.