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. 

Fierce Fragile Hearts by Sara Banard

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 354 

Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books 

Released: 7th of February 2019 

'This time around, I'm going to be so much better. I'm going to prove to them that it was worth waiting on me.' 

Two years after a downward spiral took her as low as you can possibly go, Suzanne is starting again. Again. She's back in Brighton, the only place she felt she belonged, back with her best friends Caddy and Rosie. But they're about to leave for university. When your friends have been your light in the darkness, what happens when you're the one left behind?

What I Have to Say 

It was so great to get to see Caddy, Rosie and Suzanne again, especially from Suzanne's view point, because I find Suzanne an amazing character. I love how perfectly she's written, a screwed up survivor coping with PTSD and her crappy family, who still, after everything she went to, defend her father and see her as being dramatic.

I felt so much for Suzanne. She's been through so much and now she's out in the world having to live on her own. Though at some points it's frustrating (ask for help, Suze!!!) you can't help rooting for her. It's like she's a friend. You can definitely see how Caddy and Rosie feel trying to support her. She's such a sweet person but her life is so hard and she has some bad habits when she gets triggered.

I just really really loved seeing it all from Suzanne's viewpoint. It worked perfectly, in the same way that the first book worked really well from Caddy's point of view. I just want so much more from these characters.

And it has a dog in it! What more can you ask for?

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

The Truth About Lies by Tracy Darnton

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 256

Publisher: Stripes Publishing 

Released: 12th of July 2018 

Jess has an incredible memory. She can remember every single detail of every single day since she was eleven. But Jess would rather not be remarkable and, after years of testing at the hands of a ruthless research team, she has finally managed to escape.

Just when Jess thinks that she’s managing to settle in to living a normal life, everything changes. Her boarding-school roommate dies and the school is thrown into a state of chaos and grief. Then new boy Dan appears and Jess can’t help but find herself drawn to him. But building relationships is hard when you can’t reveal who you really are and Jess is getting hints that someone knows more about her than she would like.

Is it time to run again? Will she ever be truly free?

What I Have to Say

This was deliciously suspenseful and full of action, secrets and lies.  Jess is a fantastic character, unique and tormented by her past. Most of the things that the program put her through are only skimmed over, but the effects of them are so obvious in her voice and actions. She's so traumatised and closed off. And she just feels very, very real. 

There are so many mysteries here. First in the facts surrounding Hanna's death and how much Jess did or didn't do to encourage her along and second in Jess's history. In the details of the program and in her mum's death. It's so interesting that right from the start Jess knows all the answers, all of them locked away in her memory, or so she thinks. 

I have to say, I enjoyed every single second of this book. I loved the characters and the plot. It was just a brilliant book from start to finish. 

My thank go to Netgalley and Stripes for providing me with this copy for review. 

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 320 

Publisher: Ebury Digital 

Released: 8th of February 2018 

Do you remember when you believed in magic?

The Emporium opens with the first frost of winter. It is the same every year. Across the city, when children wake to see ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice crackling underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open! 

It is 1917, and London has spent years in the shadow of the First World War. In the heart of Mayfair, though, there is a place of hope. A place where children’s dreams can come true, where the impossible becomes possible – that place is Papa Jack’s Toy Emporium.

For years Papa Jack has created and sold his famous magical toys: hobby horses, patchwork dogs and bears that seem alive, toy boxes bigger on the inside than out, ‘instant trees’ that sprout from boxes, tin soldiers that can fight battles on their own. Now his sons, Kaspar and Emil, are just old enough to join the family trade. Into this family comes a young Cathy Wray – homeless and vulnerable. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own. But Cathy is about to discover that while all toy shops are places of wonder, only one is truly magical...

What I Have to Say 

I loved this book so much when I was reading it. But it's one of those that ends up leaving you a bit sad. It was a beautiful book though. Full of amazing things. I love books with this kind of magical surrealism. I love books that take an aspect of life and add something amazing to it. The emporium is a place that you will fall in love with. You'll want to visit and buy toys from it. Until it all goes wrong of course. 

The whole thing with the toy soldiers, for me, was the perfect metaphor for the conflict of the pre-WW1 mentality that war is glorious and the post- WW1 disillusionment that most of the soldiers suffered. It was really interesting to see these two mentalities go up against each other, as they must have done constantly with soldiers who had been to war and people who hadn't. To see this argument be played out over a bunch of toy soldiers was a really cool was to do it. 

I think this is a book that will stay with me for quite a while. I loved the characters so much and elements like the toy soldiers and the paper trees and Sirius the patchwork dog are all things that I'll remember fondly for some time. 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with this copy for review.