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A review by emmerama
A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
5.0
I cried
EDIT: Feb 20, 2018
I feel that these two words deserve a explanation.
Let me begin by saying four things:
1) I don't typically write book reviews, and if I do write them, they aren't very lengthy,
2) I don't have experience with something like synesthesia so I'm not sure how it truly affects someone's life,
3) It's been two (2) years since I read this and I can't remember anything much other than the ending,
4) This review is mainly going to be about how the ending affected me (and I hope I don't cry in my family living room while writing this)
So. Let me preface by giving a bit of background on myself. It's been about 4-5 years now, but one of my first family dogs, Watson, had to be put down due to a stroke, seizure, and the fact that his body wasn't taking in nutrients anymore.
The decision to put him down came after realizing this condition of his wasn't going to change.
This hurt me and my family.
Bad.
We'd only had him about two years and Watson himself was only just reaching his fourth birthday. So he was a pretty young pup. For a while afterwards, I had actually been blaming myself for his death due to something that had happened minutes prior to his stroke. Of course I told nobody that I thought this until months later, but I've stopped.
Now, I went into "A Mango-Shaped Space" just looking for a bit of enjoyment. I had been reading a lot of adventure/fantasy/action books and wanted to see what Wendy Mass had published besides "The Candymakers" (a book which I really enjoyed), so when I found she did "Mango" I decided Why Not.
The book was pretty okay, I liked it well enough, but the scenes where there was a problem with Mango, the main character's cat, would sometimes set me on edge. Now I'm an animal lover so whenever an animal would die (i.e. Marley, Hachi) I would bawl my eyes out. I had a hunch that Mango would have to die at some point in the story so I prepared myself. I had a feeling I would be sad since I didn't have too strong a connection with Mango the cat, but I didn't expect to cry.
Within the final chapters of the book, the main character, Mia, gets home and wakes up in the middle of the night to a storm and no Mango. She searches and can't find Mango until she goes outside and sees the small, wet heap that is her cat. She desperately tries to save Mango by warming him and making sure he's okay but all proves futile in the end when Mango is pronounced dead in her dad's helicopter.
By this point I was silently crying in my bed, tears in my eyes blurring the words on the page as I desperately hoped none of my family members would walk in.
Why? Because in that moment I related to Mia's situation and it brought a lot of emotions to the surface. Losing an animal is hard. But reading someone's story that connects so much it feels as if you're losing the animal all over again is a new wave of pain.
Mia's desperate struggle to save Mango and her thoughts afterwards when she blamed herself felt like the times when my Watson had been struggling to survive and I blamed myself for months after? They felt so similar to me. The connection to her sorrow felt so familiar.
So, yes, I cried. I cried and cried and cried a bit more. I was even still sniffling when I finished the book a couple minutes later.
Overall, I'm not sure if the 5 stars I gave this book came from the story and interaction between characters or just those few gut-wrenching chapters that made me remember and relate to the loss of a best friend.
EDIT: Feb 20, 2018
I feel that these two words deserve a explanation.
Let me begin by saying four things:
1) I don't typically write book reviews, and if I do write them, they aren't very lengthy,
2) I don't have experience with something like synesthesia so I'm not sure how it truly affects someone's life,
3) It's been two (2) years since I read this and I can't remember anything much other than the ending,
4) This review is mainly going to be about how the ending affected me (and I hope I don't cry in my family living room while writing this)
So. Let me preface by giving a bit of background on myself. It's been about 4-5 years now, but one of my first family dogs, Watson, had to be put down due to a stroke, seizure, and the fact that his body wasn't taking in nutrients anymore.
The decision to put him down came after realizing this condition of his wasn't going to change.
This hurt me and my family.
Bad.
We'd only had him about two years and Watson himself was only just reaching his fourth birthday. So he was a pretty young pup. For a while afterwards, I had actually been blaming myself for his death due to something that had happened minutes prior to his stroke. Of course I told nobody that I thought this until months later, but I've stopped.
Now, I went into "A Mango-Shaped Space" just looking for a bit of enjoyment. I had been reading a lot of adventure/fantasy/action books and wanted to see what Wendy Mass had published besides "The Candymakers" (a book which I really enjoyed), so when I found she did "Mango" I decided Why Not.
The book was pretty okay, I liked it well enough, but the scenes where there was a problem with Mango, the main character's cat, would sometimes set me on edge. Now I'm an animal lover so whenever an animal would die (i.e. Marley, Hachi) I would bawl my eyes out. I had a hunch that Mango would have to die at some point in the story so I prepared myself. I had a feeling I would be sad since I didn't have too strong a connection with Mango the cat, but I didn't expect to cry.
Within the final chapters of the book, the main character, Mia, gets home and wakes up in the middle of the night to a storm and no Mango. She searches and can't find Mango until she goes outside and sees the small, wet heap that is her cat. She desperately tries to save Mango by warming him and making sure he's okay but all proves futile in the end when Mango is pronounced dead in her dad's helicopter.
By this point I was silently crying in my bed, tears in my eyes blurring the words on the page as I desperately hoped none of my family members would walk in.
Why? Because in that moment I related to Mia's situation and it brought a lot of emotions to the surface. Losing an animal is hard. But reading someone's story that connects so much it feels as if you're losing the animal all over again is a new wave of pain.
Mia's desperate struggle to save Mango and her thoughts afterwards when she blamed herself felt like the times when my Watson had been struggling to survive and I blamed myself for months after? They felt so similar to me. The connection to her sorrow felt so familiar.
So, yes, I cried. I cried and cried and cried a bit more. I was even still sniffling when I finished the book a couple minutes later.
Overall, I'm not sure if the 5 stars I gave this book came from the story and interaction between characters or just those few gut-wrenching chapters that made me remember and relate to the loss of a best friend.