Stones
I killed my brother. It’s these words and the emotions that followed that haunt Coo as she tries to deal with the death of her brother. It’s like a blanket that covers her and she can’t shake it off, so she does the only thing she knows how to do and that is to bury herself beneath it. To Coo that means skipping school, hanging out on the promenade and befriending Banks. A relationship with Banks is not such a great arrangement, as he’s a 20 year-old tramp, an alkie, a dosser, a broken individual just like her brother Sam when he died and left Coo and her family shattered. Coo is drawn to Banks for a variety of reasons and all the while, I am conflicted on how this relationship is going to pan out. But it’s her escape, her way to deal with her problems. Just like Banks, her brother preferred the bottle. With Sam around, the family was either walking on pins-and–needles or held under Sam’s control by his abusive temper which was fueled by his drinking. With her friends there and her parents dealing with the situation in their own way, Coo…..she has to unleash herself, she has to let herself go.
I have to commend the author on her writing, the emotions were so forward. They were freely written and not whinny and drawn out. Sixteen-year old Coo felt as if she killed her brother and yet throughout the book, you did not know why. As she befriended Banks, I felt as if she was on a mission to make him a better person yet at the same time, she saw her brother in him. As she takes a drink from his bottle, an “aaahh!’ escaped my lips. What is she doing? The book changes for me then and I could not put the book down as I wondered about the plight of Coo. Banks and Coo do have some interesting talks and I looked forward to when the two of them met up. Their stone throwing activities, her sack breakfasts and their trips inside The Mansion, time alone yet not a good situation. Her parents and how they coped with the situation; Sam still walked among them. Joe, how I loved him. He was truly a friend, with everything he had going on at home; he still was there for her. A wonderfully written book on how one teen deals with a tough issue. I highly recommend this book.
Thank you Net Galley for supplying a copy of this book for me to review.
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