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sonaksha 's review for:
Wild Awake
by Hilary T. Smith
If I had to talk about Wild Awake in a few lines I’d say that it was hauntingly beautify and uncannily real. I’d also acknowledge that this book isn’t easy or light, it’s intense and clawing - in a way that will make you want to devour it, one word after another.
I’m well aware that there’s a mixed feel going around because it’s not a book everyone will enjoy or approve of, and that’s okay. But for those who can appreciate writing like Hilary T. Smith’s, it’s quite magical. From the beautiful use of prose that will echo in your ears long after you put the book down, to the characters who are just as flawed and real as you and I are. And no, I’m not going to obsess and pass judgments about drug use because there’s more to the book than just that. It’s also quite admirable how she weaves in the drug use as being something so natural for them, in their teenage, and carefully does not pass judgments or tell you what to do or how to live. And in some ways I think why Wild Awake is so beautiful is because she allows Kiri to grow, to do what she wants, to feel how she wants to - she doesn’t put her in a box and shut her up.
Coming to grief and dealing with it, it’s so easy to say that grief has five stages and we all go through it. But often it’s not like that. Grief can hardly be prepared for. And when it hits you, it does. And with Kiri, Hilary T. Smith refused to pin down her grief to a stage, she let it take the shape and form it wanted. It’s amazing how many books have damaged people fixing each other when that is almost so unreal and that’s one of the biggest reasons I loved Wild Awake. Kiri and Skunk didn’t fix each other, they didn’t try to fix each other. They were in love, they continued being in love and let the love change them as it were to. And at the end of the book, everything didn’t get fixed, there wasn’t a solution to Skunk’s ways, just as Kiri didn’t go back to playing at the Showcase and maybe that’s why it felt so real and lovely.
“Everyone does something to be okay, Skunk. That’s how the world is. At least the only things you need to muffle to survive are the voices in your head. Some people muffle their hearts.”
We’re all bent, just like Skunk and Kiri, and that’s what makes us real too.
(Psst...I seem to have gotten very emotional and deeply connected to the thoughts in the book, pardon me)
I’m well aware that there’s a mixed feel going around because it’s not a book everyone will enjoy or approve of, and that’s okay. But for those who can appreciate writing like Hilary T. Smith’s, it’s quite magical. From the beautiful use of prose that will echo in your ears long after you put the book down, to the characters who are just as flawed and real as you and I are. And no, I’m not going to obsess and pass judgments about drug use because there’s more to the book than just that. It’s also quite admirable how she weaves in the drug use as being something so natural for them, in their teenage, and carefully does not pass judgments or tell you what to do or how to live. And in some ways I think why Wild Awake is so beautiful is because she allows Kiri to grow, to do what she wants, to feel how she wants to - she doesn’t put her in a box and shut her up.
Coming to grief and dealing with it, it’s so easy to say that grief has five stages and we all go through it. But often it’s not like that. Grief can hardly be prepared for. And when it hits you, it does. And with Kiri, Hilary T. Smith refused to pin down her grief to a stage, she let it take the shape and form it wanted. It’s amazing how many books have damaged people fixing each other when that is almost so unreal and that’s one of the biggest reasons I loved Wild Awake. Kiri and Skunk didn’t fix each other, they didn’t try to fix each other. They were in love, they continued being in love and let the love change them as it were to. And at the end of the book, everything didn’t get fixed, there wasn’t a solution to Skunk’s ways, just as Kiri didn’t go back to playing at the Showcase and maybe that’s why it felt so real and lovely.
“Everyone does something to be okay, Skunk. That’s how the world is. At least the only things you need to muffle to survive are the voices in your head. Some people muffle their hearts.”
We’re all bent, just like Skunk and Kiri, and that’s what makes us real too.
(Psst...I seem to have gotten very emotional and deeply connected to the thoughts in the book, pardon me)