Saturday, March 5, 2011

Book Review: Sweetie by Kathryn Magendie

Title: Sweetie
Author: Kathryn Magendie
Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Subject: Coming of Age Story, Hardships, Friendship
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Release date: November 2010
Length: 212 pages
I got this book: From the publisher for review through NetGalley

Summary:
In this story we get to follow Melissa, a twelve year old girl who is overweight and insecure. She takes an interest in Sweetie, a girl who lives in the mountains and is seen as the weirdest girl in town. As Sweetie teaches Melissa about the ways of the mountains, they develop a deep friendship. Melissa learns to see things from another angle She grows stronger and braver but also struggles with the first signs of puberty and how this influences the friendship between her and Sweetie. At the end of the summer the two friends have to face a series of problems and make some decisions that might influence their friendship forever.

Personal opinion:
This was a very intriguing coming of age story. Both Melissa and Sweetie are very interesting characters and the writer does a good job on portraying the differences between them. I liked how the friendship between the two develops and how Sweetie is very careful about letting Melissa in to her world. The book deals with some difficult themes like bullying, gossiping and the influence of the society in general. Especially in the second half of the book it gets more serious and I felt like being caught in the stream and not being able to stop it. I really enjoyed reading the book but I wasn't really satisfied with the ending. I don't know how I feel exactly about the ending to be honest since it was so unreal, but maybe this was exactly the writers intention.


I liked it!

Purchase links: Amazon
Other reviews: Leeswammes' Blog and The Mushings of a Book Addict
If you have reviewed this book and want your link here, please leave a comment with the link, and I will add it :)

3 comments:

  1. It was a nice book, I thought so too but the ending, you're right, that was a little strange.

    You might like to read another book by this author that I read: Tender Graces (http://leeswammes.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/tender-graces-by-kathryn-magendie/).

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  2. Thanks for the recommendation :) It was already on my Wishlist on goodreads :) So hopefully I will get to it eventually.

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  3. Sounds like a very 'cute' book

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