Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
I loved this. Children detectives are a favourite genre of mine so this was right up my alley. I also love children who can be totally horrible but have a squishy centre (very realistic) and overall just found the whole reading experience delightful. I thought Robin Stevens did a great job of balancing the realities of murder and the impact that'd have on a kid (especially seeing a dead body) with still writing something fun and not too gruesome.
There is a lot of diet talk and weight bias that is always challenged and rejected - still would say worth taking care when reading if that's something that's triggering.
This is a lovely book by mother and daughter duo Sally Morgan and Amberlin Kwaymullina. It's a simple story detailing all the things the two children in the book love about themselves (curly hair, 'the way my feet splash' etc). We love the vivid illustrations and the kid loves yelling out I LOVE ME as we read along.
I thought this was fun. I loved the concept of Puck as narrator. Very enjoyable.
I do think this leans more toward being a story with romance rather than a Romance because of the narrator not being one of the main characters. You don’t get exactly the level of interior emotion about their relationships that I feel is necessary in a Romance (and Alexis Hall does incredibly in other books) but I think it’s just a matter of expectations. It’s a good read.
I have mixed feelings about this, mostly because the first half of the book felt way too long. This made it hard to connect to Josie because she was stuck as a quite irritating character for so long also didn’t really get a feel for the other characters. It kind of fit that they felt like maybe they're not real people because it was almost like she didn’t see them that way. But it made it hard to connect or care about them or Josie.