My Rating: 4/5
Am I on a roll here or what? Seriously, this is my fourth book review of the month and the third review in a week. WHAT THE……. I have never ever in my reading life been so efficient and since I’ve been reading my whole life, that kind of sluggishness suffices my entire life.
Jeez, I’m making serious progress here. All too shocked and proud?!
So I’ll quit babbling about my efficiency and before this turns out to be a “me post” , let us get into the reviewing part. Let me start with telling ya’ll THAT OH MY THIS BOOK IS SUPER AMAZING! I LOVE IT. From broken families and nice functional foster families, to
sibling rivalry and sibling fun, and dysfunctions and mistakes and heartbreaks and loss and most important, FAMILY LOVE; this book has it all. I’m a sucker for broken family stories, and this by far was grrrreaaat.
It’s about these 3 biological siblings who got separated at birth. They were given to different adoption families, but then they all come together and find themselves and learn what it means to be a family.
The writing felt so real and raw. This story is basically written from the POV’s of the three siblings; Grace, Maya and Joaquin. The first chapter which is the Grace’s POV is like it has been torn right out of someone’s personal diary. I tell you, it feels so damn real reading it. The writing is extremely simple and it hits you right where it’s supposed to. This actually reminded me a lot of this TV show i watched a few years back, The Fosters. Beautiful narration, that was. Except that it had some budding romance which I believe always overshadows the real plot or story that is supposed to be unravelling. But guess what? this book only has hints of romance present which isn’t clingy, cheesy or swoon-worthy. Instead, gay love. What I also liked was that each sibling had a different adopted family story. We get to see so many aspects of how adoptees feel, different kinds of foster families and the situation that these adopted kids sometimes have to deal with.
One of the things I loved about the characters was that they all felt very real and relatable to me. Every character had one distinct trait about them, Grace with her “i want to keep my issues to myself but act perfect”, Joaquin with his “reserved, silent attitude” and Maya with her “Idgaf about anything attitude” they all had certain pros and cons about them. At certain times, I really didn’t like how the characters were acting and i was super pissed only to realise that i’m pissed because of THEIR situation in a book and isn’t that what good characterization is all about? I haven’t felt a character’s plight in a long long time and this book did it for me!
Also, not to forget the minor characters: Claire, Lauren, Rafe etc
Rafe, especially. I LOVED HIM. He gets the award for my favourite supporting actor in a minor role.
Grace: Okay, I need to tell you something. I don’t know if I want to date anyone right now, that’s all.”
Rafe: (pretended to draw back in horror) “Okay, honestly, Grace? Why do you keep insisting that I’m trying to date you? This is sexual harassment, that’s what this is. In my place of employment, even!!”
He also said the funniest things ti cheer Grace up and that was just really sweet. It was almost cute to watch these two. (I say almost bec very very very predictably he catches feelings for Grace (this isn’t a spoiler btw bec its apparent from chapter 2) and that ladies and gentlemen, wasn’t fine by me. (why can’t boys and girls be just friends and the plot be okayyy with that??? why catch feelings at some point?? Life doesn’t happen that way huh!) But I guess Benway had enough realistic issues going on in this book for me to avoid this teeny weeny thing.
So yeah guys, alll I’ll say is go on read this book! Also this book made ALOT of people really teary and emotional and even though that has not happened with me ever and didn’t happen with this book either, nevertheless this book is the prime example of how plot is taken further along with awesome af characterisation.
My rating: 4/5
TheReadersBay 