Hello my lovely bookworms. Happy Monday and hope you had a lovely weekend. Today I’m bringing you a book review *shock horror*. I know – I mean it’s been a while once again. But I’ve read a lot of books this summer so far which I’m loving and I need to catch up on review desperately.
Today’s review is my most recent finished book, Something Certain, Maybe by Sara Barnard. With under half way to go on the book, I picked it up before bed and I finished it at 2 am. So here is a little more about the book and here’s why I loved it so much. I have a lot to say I think…
Something Certain, Maybe by Sara Barnard Published by Macmillan Children's Books on July 1, 2022
Genres: Contemporary, LGBTQ+, Love & Romance, UKYA, Young Adult Fiction
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A powerful novel about first love, friendships and embracing the uncertainty of an unknowable future, from Sara Barnard, winner of the YA Book Prize.
Rosie is ready for her life to begin, because nothing says new life like going to university. After years of waiting and working hard, she's finally on the road that will secure her future.
Except university turns out to be not what she hoped or imagined, and although she's not exactly unhappy – really! – she might be a little bit worried that she doesn't really like her course much. Or her flatmates. Or really... anything? But it's normal to be homesick (right?) and everything will have settled in a month or two, and it's totally fine that her friends seem so much happier than she is, and that the doctors don’t seem to know what’s wrong with her mother.
But then she meets Jade, and everything starts to look a little brighter. At least, it does if she’s only looking at Jade. But is first love enough when everything else is falling apart?
TW – mentions of suicide, child/family member death, family illness, isolation, relationship issues
Something Certain, Maybe is a sapphic contemporary UKYA set in university. Rosie is one of the original trio of characters from Beautiful Broken Things her first YA that I loved. Which then continued into Fierce Fragile Hearts. This book can be read as a standalone book but I would encourage you to read her other books too.
Rosie is starting her first year there and she has everything planned out, she always been told to list her certainties. But she soon realises in the first few days that University isn’t always how it seems. New friends, new flat, new chapter of life isn’t how she imagined.
There isn’t very many books that are set in university – the only one I’ve read is Freshers by Lucy Iverson. From my interview with Sara she wanted to write a story where university isn’t the ultimate choice, that planning your life away isn’t the way, plans fall apart and you can’t keep to a plan if you are unhappy in yourself. Sara really captured the struggle of change and especially how that impacted of Rosie’s mental health. But then she meets Jade, a third year in Pharmacy degree. Suddenly the unhappiness and drastic changes in her life disappear. Jade brings the happiness out in Rosie, shining through the book and I was honestly rooting for their relationship all the way. It brings a warmth to the reader knowing that Rosie has something for her to hold on too.
I really loved seeing the development of her best friends Suzanne and Caddy. They certainly have their friendship struggles. University is a massive life choice that can either make you – like Caddy who is embracing it, whilst with Rosie – it can break you. For Suze, she is still very much finding what she wants to do after the struggles she’s endured. In a lot of YA books, you never see a companion novel to see how these characters that you’ve learnt to love is doing. It gives it that natural progression of life in YA books and you feel as a reader way more connected to the characters.
But for me, what really touched me in this book and had me glazy eyed throughout the book is Rosie’s relationship with her mum. Oh my, did that pull at the heart strings. Their relationship very much reminded me of mine with my mum. It’s just Rosie and her mum, their bond is unbreakable. Without spoiling it, they do go through so rough patches. Her mum will do everything to put Rosie’s happiness first and in turn won’t always tell her things. Whilst Rosie wants to know, she worries about her and being so far away. It made the book for me rather special and undeniable it was the reason why I genuinely couldn’t put it down.
Something Certain, Maybe is probably my favourite book of Sara’s without a doubt. I feel it’s one of kind, the storyline, the return of the original trio of characters, the exploration of life choices and decisions, falling in love for the first time, understanding the value of family and friends. Fan’s of Holly Bourne will love Sara’s books.
Thank you to Macmillan Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for a review.
