The Weight Of A Thousand Feathers by Brian Conaghan

Bobby is a boy with a lot on his mind, getting his mum her pills and aiding her around their home as well as looking after his brother, Danny a few years younger than his seventeen, too.
He has a good friend in Bel whom fancies him but nonetheless stays his best friend and helps watch over his mum while he goes to young carer meetings.

It's at the young carer meetings he has the chance of a break, a short holiday whilst also making friends with other young careers including Lou a boy he has strong feelings towards as he doesn't romantically like Bel but Lou.

At home he watches his mum deteriorate more into her illness day by day and it saddens him, upsets and frustrates his mum that she can't care for her children but that they have to role reverse and care for her. As her MS starts to cause more and more bodily failures, she asks her Bobby to end her life as is worsening quicker and wishes for no more suffering.

Meanwhile his friend Lou becomes a rock for him as well as his poetry to release his emotions and he finds out secrets can make or break a bond as truths get shared.

This is a heartbreakingly beautiful story. I picked this book as I know an MS sufferer and seen her struggles develop year after year since her diagnosis. I personally have the pain condition fibromyalgia and osteoporosis and spend days in a different but not dissimilar completely status of pain. Sharing tales of suffering and hardship on family members like in this book is key to letting others know they can reach out no matter how hard it may seem, someone will get it, guaranteed. The struggles the family face are alike so many real life experiences and the moral right or wrong of what their mum asks for is often talked about and debated.

Overall, this book has many fun moments that are sweet between mum and son but mostly is a heartbreaker.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

The Girl In The Window by Penny Joelson

When Kasia one night see's a young girl looking like she's being kidnapped she also sees a person in the window facing hers across the road.

Ellie her best friend visits her as Kasia can't leave her bedroom, after suffering tonsillitis, she developed an infection leading to CFS/ME. Leaving her chronically tired and weak.

As she begins to pace herself into getting downstairs and then to visit Mrs Gayatri next door, she also wonders who's in the window opposite hers as no girl ever leaves and the owners deny her being there. It is thanks to Mrs Gayatri she meets Navin and gains a new friend.

As new friends are made, new hobbies found and even getting themselves into serious danger to save many people, this book proves much drama despite Kasia having ME/CFS and being confined just to her house some days she has an adventurous time finding out about the girl in the window.

I loved Penny's last book so much, this one I'm glad to say didn't disappoint me at all either and instead I got quite emotional reading about Kasia's struggle with ME/CFS. As a sufferer of Fibromyalgia of which ME/CFS goes with hand in hand, I know what it's like to be in constant pain, be never endingly tired and dream of a life living not just existing and plans on hold. It was definitely relatable and new to young adult fiction being brought up as I haven't come across another book to mention or include a character with ME/CFS. It was a great story concept and shows how little trafficking is mentioned in fiction for young adults so brought a whole new element to the mix and not just making it a ghost storyline again like in a lot of books. I found myself reading it in one sitting, full of drama and mystery it's a thrilling read.

The book dealt with the subject of human trafficking very well and showed the danger girls can be in realistically.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!