Audrey Meihak

This is a book about being forced to grow up with dementia and amnesia. It's a book about redemption and learning to let go even when it hurts. It's about young love. It's about finding out how much family can help one 17-year-old girl get past the most life-changing event she could have ever imagined.

It took me a long time to understand what this book was about - like 75%. I considered putting it down, but I knew it had to get better. I found myself questioning why the main character, Cady, did what she did. I constantly had to remind myself that her story bounced between Cady being 15 and 17 years old, so she was allowed to be immature. I was heartbroken once all of the pieces fell together. Admittedly, I looked up what happened at the end of the book to see if it was worth finishing, so I wasn't surprised by what happened.

I may need to read this book again. I'm not sure how much of what Cady says happens in Summer 17 is Percocet-induced hallucinations, how much is a result of her actually remembering, and how much is supernaturally influenced. My heart broke for her when she talked about the pain she felt when the dogs died, and when her 3 liars told her it was time for them to leave.

This wasn't my favorite book so far this year, but I think it's been the most fun. I thought that telling the story from 10+ perspectives would be too ambitious, but it was actually done quite well.

This book made me think more than I was expecting. Each person was at the resort for a different reason, and had different things they wanted out of their experience. It made me think about what I can do more to improve my health in small ways (I don't see myself ever going to a 10 day health retreat after reading this). I bought a jump rope! We'll see how long it takes me to get past 1 minute of jumping before I'm out of breath.

Everyone has things they want to improve, and this book showed that even the people that seem to have everything can be unhappy with who they are. This was one book I will be thinking about and recommending for quite a while.

Prompt 7 from 2019 Popsugar Challenge: A reread of a favorite book; prompt 6 from 2020 Popsugar Challenge: A bildungsroman; prompt 40 from 2021 Popsugar Challenge: Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Book: The Outsiders Author: S. E. Hinton Genre: YA fiction, bildungsroman Dates Read: 05/12/2021-05/21/2021 Format: physical book Other prompts: A book everyone seems to have read but you.

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