Author: cpw08

How To Make Friends With The Dark is an amazing book by Kathleen Glasgow. It’s about a girl called Grace, but everyone calls her Tiger. In the book, Tiger is 16 and has only really been close to two people, Cake and her mum. She’s never met her dad either, so its been Tiger and her mum for Tiger’s whole life.

Without any warning, Tiger’s mum suddenly dies. Her whole world gets turned upside down and she has to get used to life without her mum. She becomes property of the state and has to go to her first foster home where she sees the worse side of foster care as the owner of the house is quite cruel and controlling. The next day she gets moved to her new foster home while they find her a permanent one. She meets these two young children and hears their sad stories about how they got into foster. There is also an older child, called Thaddeus, who is around the same age as Tiger. She befriends him and learns about all the good and bad sides of foster care. As she adjust to this new way of living, she finds out more about herself and her family.

I thought it was an amazing read and would rate it 4 stars. I would recommend it for ages 12+ as, especially at the beginning, it is quite sad. If you choose to read it, hope you enjoy it!

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven is an amazing book by Juno Dawson and is part of a trilogy. The second and third books are not out yet. This book has four main protagonists (all of whom are witches). Their names are Niamh, Leonie, Elle and Helena. Helena is the high Priestess of HMRC (Her Majesty’s Royal Coven). It is one of the first Coven created and it was created by Anne Boleyn (the second wife of Henry VIII). Leonie created a rival Coven called Diaspora and her aim was to create a more inclusive Coven which has more diversity. Niamh is a vet and she uses her abilities to give animals peaceful deaths. Although Elle is from a powerful line of witches she has chosen to live as a mundane (human) housewife.

Helena always puts the Coven first and wants to make sure that the Coven is protected. When a very powerful, young warlock (a male witch) comes along, who has the power to threaten the HMRC, Helena gets worried. She gets Niamh, who is a powerful adept (someone who has multiple powers), to try and read the Warlocks mind as he isn’t cooperating with anyone. She quickly realises that he is just frightened so Niamh brings him to her house to try and get to know him better. As Niamh gets to know the warlock, she realises that he is not the threat everyone thinks that he is.

In this book, Juno Dawson explores the ideas of power and gender in this amazing book. I rated it 4 stars and would recommend it to people over the age of 13.

You’d be home now is an incredible book by Kathleen Glasgow. The protagonist is a girl called Emory who has felt invisible all her life. She’s always looking after her older brother, Joey (who has an opioid addiction), and her sister is the perfect, popular girl who she’s always in the shadow of.

Suddenly everything changes for Emmy when her and her brother get in a car accident which kills Candy Mont Clair and reveals Joey’s addiction. Joey is sent to rehab and Emmy has to deal with four months where her sister leaves, her Dad is never home and her already paranoid mum gets even more paranoid. Before she knows it, Emmy’s junior year is starting and her and her brother are going back to school. But the accident is not forgotten. Candy’s friend, who has still not forgiven Emmy or Joey, starts blaming them for what happened when they had nothing to do with Candy’s death. Emmy starts to make friends with Liza, (her old friend), Jeremy (the younger brother of Joey’s friend Luther) and Daniel, (a guy from her English class) and starts to wonder whether she is limited to only being what other people think of her. Does she have to constantly be the good girl? Does she have to constantly make sure her brother stays out of trouble?

This book was amazing and I would rate it 5 stars. I would recommend it for people 13+ as it deals with heavy subjects such as drug use and addiction but I think that it is also a really important book to read. Hope you enjoy it!

The Night Diary is set in India in 1947 when Britain split from India. The protagonist is a 12 year old girl called Nisha who’s mum died in childbirth. Her Mum is Muslim and her Dad is Hindu. Nisha lives with her twin brother, Amil, her dad, her grandma and Kazi who cooks meals for them.

Soon into the book, the family find out about Britain splitting from India and that they’ll have to leave from Pakistan to go to India. Unfortunately this meant that Kazi couldn’t go with them as he is Muslim so he had to stay in Pakistan.

At the beginning of the book, Nisha starts to notice the changes which happens after Britain split with India. When Nisha and her family decide that it is safer to walk to India than to take the train. They decide to stop halfway at Nisha’s mums brothers house. This is the house that Nisha’s mum grew up in, so she’s very excited to see it.

This book is amazing and would highly recommend to readers 10+.