Roads from Harassment to Hope: 'Caramel Hearts' by ER Murray

Although Caramel Hearts is about a girl trying to cope with her mother’s alcohol addiction, there are plenty of other relevant issues weaved into the story; friendship, sibling relationships, first love, taking responsibility, making wrong choices, absent fathers and bullying. I wanted anyone who has experienced any of the issues that Liv and her friends/family go through to have all the feels; that the story felt real was my number one priority. 

I decided to touch upon bullying because it is a very real issue for teens – and it’s something that has far-reaching consequences for the victims in their future. In addition, the bystanders and loved ones who don’t know how to deal with or stop the bullying are affected too, with lifelong repercussions in many cases.

How exactly do you get a bully off your back? How do you protect someone else that’s being targeted? Is fighting back, or ignoring, the correct route to take? Do you tell someone in authority, or perhaps a friend or family member, or do you pretend it’s not happening? Every possible action and inaction can have such huge consequences, with the potential to make matters worse. Bullying creates anger, resentment, helplessness, and in some cases, the cycle is repeated.

Bullying comes in many forms and can be difficult to detect or prove, which makes it even harder for the victim to fight back. There’s group bullying that can be openly violent, but then there’s also friendship switches, backbiting and bitching, forced isolation, verbal cruelty and peer pressure – all equally damaging. There are also bullies who target alone, sometimes openly and sometimes secretively; they can seem really nice to the rest of the word, except for their victim, increasing the victim’s isolation. Cyber-bullying is another huge issue, both open and private – and with our increasing reliance on social media, this means it can be difficult to escape the attentions of a bully, even in solitude or the safety of home.

It is during our teenage years that we form our opinions and personalities, and so it’s no surprise that it’s a really difficult time to navigate. As teens, we feel adult enough for more freedom and responsibilities, and yet, people aren’t quite ready to listen to us – we don’t really have a voice, or at least one that is taken seriously – and this leads to all kinds of frustration and emotional anxiety. And as if these times aren’t difficult enough, when you add bullying into the mix, it’s a whole new level of awful.

In Caramel Hearts, the main character, Liv, is initially confronted with the problem of seeing one of her old friends turn against another; Liv’s best friend Sarah becomes the target of Maddy ‘Mad Dog’ Delaney’s bullying and Liv tries to help the best she can in her way. Later, when Liv becomes a victim, we see a shift in her understanding of bullying, of its consequences and how it feels.

The bully is not a nice character, but Mad Dog has a story of her own and I hope that readers can tap into that. Many factors affect people’s personalities such as poverty, life experiences, medical conditions and trauma. People are complex, rather than good or bad; they’re multi-faceted and changeable. And so, just like all the other characters, I wanted to show Mad Dog in different lights. I doubt the reader will accept Maddy’s behaviour, but I hope they can see where it stems from, and perhaps feel some sympathy.

Another important aspect of Caramel Hearts was a sense of hope. Having grown up in a family affected by addiction, and attended a school fraught with bullying, I know that in these often traumatic situations, your one true weapon is hope. Hope lets you see that life can be different to your present circumstances, that challenges can be overcome and changes can be made. Hope helps you understand that there is more to the world and that you can strive for it.

For Liv, hope lies in her friendships and in the handwritten cookbook that she discovers. The recipes provide her with a chance to be good at something; they’re a focus, but they also provide a connection to her absent mum who’s trying to deal with an alcohol addiction in a recovery centre. For Maddy, it’s a very different situation. Does she feel hope? Can she see a way out? Does she want to change? I’ll leave that for the reader to decide.

About Caramel Hearts:

Liv Bloom’s life is even more complicated than that of your average fourteen-year-old: her father walked out on the family when she was young, her mother is in a recovery centre for alcoholics, and her older sister is struggling to step into Mum’s shoes. Structured around real cake recipes, Caramel Hearts is a coming-of-age novel about love, disappointment and hope, and discovering the true value of friends and family, no matter how dysfunctional they are.

About E.R. Murray:

Elizabeth Rose Murray lives in West Cork, Ireland, with her dog Franklyn.  As well as writing, Elizabeth loves to travel and has worked bathing rescue elephants and scooping up their poo.  On her travels Elizabeth has eaten crickets, kangaroo, chicken feet, water beetles, frogs, ostrich and snake.  Elizabeth has had poetry and short fiction published in journals in both the UK and Ireland.  Her debut novel for children, The Book of Nine Lives, was chosen as the 2016 Dublin UNESCO City of Literature Citywide Read for Children. You can contact Elizabeth via her website www.ermurray.com, Twitter @ERMurray, instagram and Facebook.

Buy Caramel Hearts on Foyles and Waterstones.

'One' book with the heart of two: 'One' book review

'One' by Sarah Crossan

Review by Christopher Moore

 

Summary:

Grace and Tippi are twins - conjoined twins. And their lives are about to change. No longer able to afford homeschooling, they must venture into the world - a world of stares, sneers and cruelty. Will they find more than that at school? Can they find real friends? And what about love? But what neither Grace or Tippi realises is that a heart-wrenching decision lies ahead. A decision that could tear them apart. One that will change their lives even more than they ever imagined...From Carnegie Medal shortlisted author Sarah Crossan, this moving and beautifully crafted novel about identity, sisterhood and love ultimately asks one question: what does it mean to want and have a soulmate? Winner of The CILIP Carnegie Medal in 2016.

 

 

Review:

The first book I ever read by Sarah Crossan was Apple and Rain. Apple and Rain stuck to me like glue so I knew One was a winner from the start. I love that it’s written in verse; firstly, because it is beautiful and the poetic nature adds layers of meaning to the little complexities of Tippi’s and Grace’s stories and secondly, because this style and the white space makes it easier for those with reading difficulties to enjoy.

It’s hard to say what my favourite part of this book was. Let’s start with the cover and remark on how beautiful the new jacket is. Tippi and Grace – there’s too much to say. They are beautiful human beings. The meaning behind their names, their passion and support for each other is emotional in small gestures and in key scenes, heart-shattering.

My favourite character though, is probably Dragon. I love how she supports her sisters. She never complains that their parents’ attention is focused on them. She doesn’t protest when she is denied the opportunity to travel to Russia and dance. The scene where she helps Tippi and Grace climb a tree was probably one of my favourites. I won’t say anymore because I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone.

Crossan infuses other issues into the story to create a multi-faceted narrative that ticks all my boxes and ones I never even knew existed. Alcoholism, financial constraint, family, friendship, love; One has it all but none of this overshadows Tippi’s and Grace’s incredible bond. The panoramic scenes are as short as a few words and as long as six pages but this episodic scenes knit together to create the seamless, over-arching story. I don’t know how to sum up how I feel articulately because One has left me feeling rather emotional, grasping at oxygen atoms like they might somehow lend me the words I need to describe what is a story that draws tears, induces laughter and brings an eye-crinkling smile that touches your eyes.

Sarah Crossan’s One is sadder than:

• Titanic
• My Dog Skip (this movie devastated me as a child)
• Marley & Me (beginning to see a trend?)
• Stay by the Shakespeare Sisters
• Paris Hilton’s attempts at a pop career

 

But it was like: 

• Your first kiss that fizzles through your body and sends hundreds of fireworks firing off in your head
• That rush of adrenaline you get right before a big race
• The feeling you get when someone smiles at you and it makes you smile from the inside out
• The feeling you get when you see tragedy on the news and while you send out prayers into the universe, it brings your family closer together, making you cherish every hug, kiss breath and step.

  

Nothing I ever say about One will ever do it justice. It’s refreshing and poignant and it touched my heart in ways I never thought possible. It very nearly brought me to tears but it made me want to reach into the book and hold Tippi and Grace so tight that I’d never let them go. It made me laugh and opened up the corners of my world to be a little kinder, a little gentler and to never be afraid to love and live who and how I want.

 

I can't do a giveaway for this book because between these pages is a story and each word is perfectly placed and that placement and the sheer weight of those words creates what can only be described as perfection. It would have been a grave injustice if Sarah Crossan didn't win the Carnegie Medal 2016. Congratulations, Sarah!

Rating: 5/5 Stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

 

Christopher Moore:

  

Christopher is a co-founder of the YAfictionados blog and is best known as the YAblooker. He is a twenty-five year old book blogger who has previously worked in marketing and consumer insight for various publishing houses and writes in his spare time. He loves to travel and will read anything YA-related and some general fiction and fantasy.

'The Vanishing Girls' Is An Edge-Of-Your-Seat Nail-Biter

'Vanishing Girls' by Lauren Oliver

Review by Sarah Nuttall

 

Summary:

 

Lauren Oliver returns with her exceptional new book ‘Vanishing Girls’ once again delivering a novel that will appeal beyond her adult audience with a coming-of-age story with YA appeal. 

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.

In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

 

Review:

 

New York Times bestselling author, Lauren Oliver, has once again created a story that will appeal to adult readers with Vanishing Girls due to its rich complexity and emotional intelligence but with characters on the cusp of adulthood, faced with life-altering decisions, the books are relatable for YA readers too. The central theme of Vanishing Girls is loss; the loss of identity through a person’s beauty, body, relationships and friendships. The accident rips all these from Dara and her loss of identity and anger at Nick feels justified and relatable because Dara feels she’s vanished from her own life; a pale shadow of her former self. When Dara crashes a nearby party to avoid the first night she’ll see Nick, she’s struck by her peers' reaction to her now to what it would have been a few months earlier. When her best friend drops by to return her possessions she’s left in her car, Dara notices that she doesn’t look at her eyes; that the possessions aren’t because she thinks Dara would want or need them but because she doesn’t want to see them; she doesn’t want to be reminded of Dara. When she leaves and Dara realises that this is the end of their friendship, because neither know how to be friends now, it's real and heart-breaking.

It’s a testament to Oliver’s writing that we are able to understand the closeness of Nick and Dara’s relationship from a few past memories and little instances in these scenes sow the seeds for later developments in the book, causing an unsettling air or tension. Within this tension, we are also introduced to the disappearance of Madeline which breaks into the forefront of the main story in unexpected places. Oliver uses this dual storyline to her advantage ratcheting up the tension in the book between the sisters, between the past and the present and the loss of Madeline to create an unsettling thriller. Yet, it's also an extremely emotional drama about the loss of the relationship between two sisters who were so close they were almost one. I found Vanishing Girls both extremely emotional and unsettling. I enjoyed it so much that  I passed on my copy immediately to a friend as I needed someone else to read it so I could talk about it.

 

Like Oliver’s other books this is a well-written novel that will stay with you long after reading and can be read as an introduction to Oliver’s style as well as a standalone novel. I’d highly recommend trying any of Oliver’s works as she is in a class of her own, from her chilling horror book Room, to dystopia with the Delirium trilogy to this thriller in Vanishing Girls she is able to write in any genre and make it engaging, providing complex and interesting characters and themes YA readers will adore.

 

 

Rating: 5/5 Stars  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Sarah Nuttall

Sarah is an active contributor for the YAfictionados blog site. She has written posts for the Waterstones blog and has worked as a bookseller (for 9 years), a Children's bookseller (for 6 years) and is now a manager at her local bookstore. Needless to say, Sarah is a valued member of the YAfictionados team - a true Children's and YA literature expert.