Category: Growing Up

Book Review | Little Bang by Kelly McCaughrain

Posted January 30, 2024 by Emma in 2024 Books, 5 Stars, Book Review, Bookish Post, Contemporary, Growing Up, UKYA, Walker Books, YA / 0 Comments

Hello my lovely readers. I am about to review the first book to make me cry of 2024 and my second 5 star read. I had a glorious glowing book hangover not in a bad way and it took me a while to really process it.

Book Review | Little Bang by Kelly McCaughrainLittle Bang by Kelly McCaughrain
Published by Walker Books on January 4, 2024
Genres: Contemporary, Family, Feminism, Love & Romance, Social Themes, UKYA, Young Adult Fiction
Amazon | Waterstones
Goodreads

Beneath the New Year's Eve fireworks, shy science-nerd Mel and slacker songwriter Sid get pregnant on their first date. Any sixteen-year-olds would expect trouble – but this is Northern Ireland 2018, where abortion is still illegal. Mel's religious parents insist she must keep the baby, whilst Sid's feminist mum pushes for a termination.

Mel and Sid are determined to do this together, but they soon discover that pregnancy is totally different for boys and girls. When their relationship starts to fall apart under all the pressure, Mel finds herself feeling alone with the impossible dilemma of the Little Bang growing inside her.

05/01/2023 – Only 17 pages in and already the main characters Sid and Mel, remind me a bit of 10 Things I Hate About You. Especially Sid specifically I think. I’m just getting that vibe and I love it.

10/01/2024 – Well what a book. I’m still crying… that was not what I expected at all. When I first heard about this book it reminded me of Trouble by Non Pratt. Which for me is the only UKYA book I’ve read on Teenage Pregnancy.

Much like this one, they way the plot line is conceived is beautiful and full of so many strong feelings that you develop throughout the book. To be brutally honest Little Bang is the complete opposite of Trouble. We follow Mel and Sid, they meet to have their first date on New Year’s Eve and they next thing they know Mel is pregnant. Mel is part of a strict catholic family and living in Northern Ireland and the reality of her pregnancy is hard to comprehend. But still, they decide to do it together for Little Bang. Sid, proves to be the man, the father he can be despite his mum’s intentions of bringing him down. It’s admirable. But Mel realises that this choice, her life, her future plans has been taken away from her, and she starts to feel lonely, The emotion and build up of it – I can’t describe it but the feeling is like your body is constricting, you are almost gasping for air, feeling tight with apprehension because you want to know what happens.

I first described this book in my notes as a YA version of 10 Things I Hate About You. As Mel and Sid reminded me of Heath Ledger, Patrick and the sister of Kat – Bianca with the fake belly scene real… If you’ve watched the movie you know what I mean. This book has a very clever plot-line, it’s admirable, raw and unflinching honest storytelling and overwhelmed with so much feeling. This book educated me on the reality of life there, and living with the politics around abortion. I’d unbearable to think of and how cutthroat it is. The freedom of choice, and having the courage to feel and admit those feelings out loud.

What really got me and my emotions was the feelings I had for these characters. The strength of both characters Mel and Sid and being transparent about their flaws and mistakes. They take the courage to speak up and be honest about those felling which really got me in those last 50 pages. There were times that I wanted to throw the book with the ludicrous situations or conversations between two complete opposite families. The growth of all of them and not just the MC, but Mel’s Dad( and mum- ish), Mat, Mel’s best friend, Lucille, Sid’s dad, I loved Mrs Edgar, always got to have your quirky, plucky senior to right your wrongs and make the axis of the planet right again with her wisdom. The realtionships in this book is second to none, it’s beautiful. And I’m still crying whilst writing this review.

Wow. Just wow. Little Bang will consume you. It’s a beautiful and poignant contemporary YA novel that needs to be read. It made me cry and feel so much, it took me a good couple of days to really take it all in.

Thank you to Walker YA for sending me a copy in exchange for a review.

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Let’s Talk YA #3 – True Friendship, Love, & Hope

Let’s Talk YA #3 – True Friendship, Love, & Hope

Emily from A Short Book Lover and I have created a weekly feature called Let’s Talk YA. – a weekly feature simply to just share and talk about the books you love. So our posts will all be centered around amazing UKYA authors. You can see the pattern here that a lot of the author and books I’m picking are the ones that really left an impression on me and are likely to be their first book, their debut that set them on that journey. This week’s author is Non Pratt and her book Trouble. I was reminded by this book […]

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Let’s Talk YA #2

Let’s Talk YA #2

Emily from A Short Book Lover and I have created a weekly feature called Let’s Talk YA. – a weekly feature simply to just share and talk about the books you love. So our posts will all be centered around amazing UKYA authors. So continuing with our feature, this week’s author is Lisa Heathfield and the first book I absolutely loved emotionally was Paper Butterflies. I picked this book today because I’m currently reading something of the same genre, and it reminded me of when I first really discovered such emotional and harrowing stories. I read this book at the beginning […]

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Blog Tour – Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Blog Tour – Summer Bird Blue by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Today I’m so excited to be part of Summer Bird Blue blog tour. This is my first book by Akemi and I absolutely adored it. It’s an emotional but beautiful book, about love, sisters, grief, friendship, support and family. Before I get to my review, here is a little bit more about the book. Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her […]

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BLOG TOUR: GUEST POST & REVIEW – FRESHERS by Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivison

BLOG TOUR: GUEST POST & REVIEW – FRESHERS by Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivison

I’m so excited to be part of this tour guys. I mean this was my first book by Tom and Lucy, (I know right, terrible reader) but I have to say I’m glad I started with Freshers first. It totally has you wetting your pants and snorting out loud. It’s pure genius. Anyways that’s enough of my fangirling, you can read more of that further down the post with my review. But first I have a guest post from the lovely Tom and Lucy with pictures too. So before you read that, here is a little more about Freshers. Freshersby Tom Ellen & Lucy […]

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