Wing Jones by Katherine Webber

Wing is a teen whom is very different to others and not just because of her name. Not only is she mixed race being Chinese and Ghanian she is a fifteen year old with a huge passion about to reveal itself showing her a new world she never new existed.

When her older brother Marcus gets into a severe accident, Wing and her family are torn up inside with grief over what's happening. They wing up in tons of debt and eventually risk losing their house. Even one of Wing's grandma's gets a job despite her age and complaints.

Wing however, deals with her grief by magical realism and running. A dragon and lioness spur Wing on to challenge herself when she runs as she wants to be fast and powerful, strong enough to do good for her brother and what he's done as the family face a lot of hate for his action's cause's.

When out running, Aaron who is Marcus's best friend can't believe the talent Wing naturally has and has been hiding from everyone and urges her to join the running team which she does and through the team she makes great friends and falls in love.

She also is spurred on by Aaron and her new running club friends to try out for a Riveo, the specialist running trainer brand, to be their new campaign face. Of which their is a money prize as well which could save her family from losing everything.

Wing is such a rare treat of a character being mixed race which we rarely hear about in a lot of young adult novels. The dedication to running and passion is inspiring and proves dreams can all come true even when you don't know them yet. Love can come at random times deapite endless wishes for it and the book also opens up to us and motivated me at least to run even though I like to when I can anyway!

Paperweight by Meg Haston

Stevie is our main character in this book, her brother Josh has passed away and now her dad has sent her to a retreat clinic for eating disorders. The distinct first feel is she's having a tough time coming to terms with events and has been drunk too much to cope with her feelings previously as well as impulsively cutting her hair in to an uneven crop thanks to her friend and sort of girlfriend of sorts, Eden.

We follow her on her journey to the retreat where she stays with twenty girls in total admission, four to a cottage each. She meets her therapist who is coincidentally called Anna when Stevie is suffering with what she believes is anorexia, then later her diagnosis is bulimia nervosa. In memory flashbacks, her mum seems to have controlled the household's food choices and is a perfectionist. She has abandoned Stevie and her dad to go live in Paris with her new boyfriend.

She has plans for twenty seven days time from her supposed, sixty day admission as it's the one year anniversary since she believes she killed her brother, Eden was there the night he died but not at the scene of death, she did however cause a scene just before.

Now though, Stevie plans to commit suicide and join her brother as she feels guilty living.

This book dealt with really strong issues, death, suicide, eating disorders, abuse, manipulative behaviour, love and LGBT related issues around that. It was well crafted but I do feel in part, for readers who are sensitive to eating disorder talk and about foods and food types etc, do not read it or be mindful reading it. It again proves how true to eating disorder talk it is though and really shines light on the situations eating disorder sufferer's go through.

I really did enjoy this book and it's already one of my top for the year so far!

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

A group of four boys, the Sauce Crew as they were known are now made of one sole member, Carver.

The other three, Eli, Mars and Blake tragically died when colliding with a truck.
Carver blames himself as he was texting them when they crashed.

However, Blake's gran is the only relative not to blame Carver, but to celebrate the life her grandson had with him. Carver's guilt also means he takes over Blake's chores he did at his gran's as she can't get down and weed to garden or now the lawns.
They also celebrate Blake's life by having a Goodbye Day for Blake together.

Carver bottles up a lot of his emotion but does open up to Jesmyn and Blake's gran about how he feels. He does suffer anxiety as the threat of possible jail time rests undecided over his head and see's Dr Mendez about his panic attacks in order to try and handle his emotions better and grieve. He and Jesmyn are talented students, Jesmyn in piano and Carver with his creative writing. They both appreciate and support each other's talents encouraging each other they do have a future to hope for.

This book shows the true horror of losing those closest to you but the flip side as well, showing who stands by you when you need them most. We see Carver go through a true rollercoaster effect of up's and down's throughout the book, love and loss play huge roles in this book. We also see Carver imagine his friends still with him throughout scenes in the book as he can't let them go at first. I really enjoyed it as it wasn't all solely focused on death, there are times of friendship flashbacks and happy moments for Carver with his sister and Jesmyn too.

Thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review it for them!

Optimists Die First by Susin Nielsen

Petula is a sixteen year old pessimist whom suffers from panic attacks. She believes she is a realist and nothing good comes from being an optimist. She attends YART which is a youth creative art group and counselling. She also fears germs and accidents, death and generally, life and any catastrophe that could entail. Her sister Maxine died and her mum has a small army of cats to find forever homes for.

I loved the cats being named after book characters!

Petula then meets wannabe director Jacob, he has a bionic arm and also attends counselling. We also learn that Petula blames herself for the death of her younger sister, Maxine who was three and even years on now, can't forgive herself for what happened. Petula feels like she needs to keep herself safe and alive as she's here not Maxine as well and seeing how life has changed and the atmosphere the family skirt around the issue in the room with them still unattended too by proper communication. She soon learns from having to work with Jacob on a school project, the tragedy around the loss of his lower arm and subsequently that he feels built he lived and not his two best friends.

In her YART group, there is a right bunch of amazing characters which each were unique and enjoyable. I really love the evolvement of this in a book as it is used in schools or at least it was when I went to my high school nearly ten years ago now.
I enjoyed the time in the group and made a beautiful papier mache mask I still own and a folder of sketches too. It helped me through high school and even though Petula doesn't allow herself to at first enjoy it. She does and the people along with the situation too as they eventually become friends through some cool adventures.

The book deals well with trust issues and friendships as well as loss and love of course. It shows the good and bad of situations quite literally but with hilarity it places to keep it a gripping read. Thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review it for them!