smaugerella 's review for:

Counting by 7's by Holly Goldberg Sloan

1.0

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Loveable characters: Complicated

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I enjoyed the accurate depiction of the grief process and of a main character (presumably) on the autism spectrum, and really liked every supporting character except for Dell Duke, who I disliked more than any other character in recent memory and honestly ruined most of the experience for me. I might have liked him a little better if he had had any profession besides being a middle school counselor, but his bafflingly unethical practices and my angry bewilderment as to how he ever got properly licensed in the first place, much less kept his licensure/job, made me want stop reading almost every time he was on the page.

(Why did he choose never to alert the school that Willow was not a cheater? I’m still confused and concerned about that.)