Nope, you're not dreaming! We are Monday and I am indeed sharing a review!
After being MIA for so long, I'm slowly getting back in the game and I decided to start this week with a review of FLANNERY, by Lisa Moore.
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| This book was given to me by the lovely Cindy over at Groundwood Books in exchange of an honest review. |
Title: Flannery
Author: Lisa Moore
Publisher: Groundwood Books
Release date: May 1st 2016
FLANNERY tells the story of Flannery, a sixteen-year-old girl, who gets partnered up with Tyrone, the boy she loves, for a entrepeurnaship class. Having to work with Tyrone isn't Flannery's only problem though, she also has to deal with her mother, Miranda, who is struggling to pay the heating bills, and her best-friend Amber who just started a relationship with a guy that might not be the best one for her.
''A story about chasing love, fighting family, losing friends and starting all over again''
I enjoyed Flannery quite a lot, but I can't give this book a full five stars since some aspects of it did bother me a little. To illustrate this, I decided to separate this review in categories: things I liked and things I liked a little less. Let's get starting!
ASPECTS OF THE BOOK I THOROUGHLY ENJOYED
First and foremost, this book scored major brownie points with me for being so relatable!
The book opens up with Flannery explaining to the reader why she can't be late to school, again, because she is she'll get another automated phone call. I was reading the first pages and all I could think was "YES! Thank you! Somebody else who ackownledges how ridiculous those phone calls are!"
Also, FLANNERY is written in first person and while this can be a tricky thing to do, Lisa Moore executed it perfectly!
Another thing that I liked about this book was the humour. I'll be honest, this book isn't filled with witty comeback or stupid one-liner so not everyone will find it very funny. But me? I found myself laughing because I could identify with the situations presented in FLANNERY and I could imagine myself reacting the same way!
The characters were another major plus for me!
Every single characters were very well developed and my favorite one had to be Miranda! See, Miranda is Flannery's mother and she insists that her children call her by her first name. She's kind, creative, owns a parenting blog in which she sometimes shares personal anecdotes about Flannery, she's a free spirit... Her presence in the book was like a breath of fresh air!
I admired her strength as a single parent and her devotion to her family. It was inspiring, really.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the way Lissa Moore incorporated some sensitive subject in her novel. Without giving away spoilers, this book does talk about abusive relationships and I thought it was very well done.
Finally, part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much was because it got to me on a personal level. Flannery's relationship with Tyrone hit close to home; instead of simply reading about her thoughts and emotions, I was living them with her.
ASPECTS OF THE BOOK THAT MADE ME CRINGE A LITTLE
It may sound like I'm contradicting myself here, but I'm not, promise!
While this book was relatable, as a whole it was unreal. By that I mean that the situations that were thrown at the characters were relatable if you looked at them individually, but together they created this chain of events that seemed very unlikely to happen.
The main thing that irked while I was reading was the time line. A story that would've made sense if it happened over the course of a year somehow happened in two months. I found myself confused at times regarding how many hours or days had passed between certain events and because of it, I had trouble making sense of what was happening.
A thing that I wasn't expecting was the darker tone of the story. It didn't make me dislike the story, far from it, but I went in thinking I was going to read a cute contemporary and that's not exactly what I got.
FINAL WORDS
FLANNERY was a really good book that conveyed some powerful lessons. Although it had some flaws, it still lived up to what it claimed to be: heartbreaking and hilarious, empowering and horrowing... GREAT!
"But we have lots of reasons to feel emotional. Life isn't fair. There's nothing wrong with emotion Flan. That's how we know we're alive. It's good."
FLANNERY is coming out this Sunday, May 1st, so be sure to mark your calendar! Trust me when I say you don't want to miss this one!
Take care lovelies,
Sophie
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