Tuesday, 3 October 2017

Louise Beech

I've been hearing about this book but sometimes there's just too much to read! Finally got around to it - it's jolly good!


How to be Brave

Amazon.com link

My review - 

What a great concept for a book this is. Young Rose, aged nine, is diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes while her soldier father is away on a long tour and her mum, Natalie, has to cope with it alone. To persuade her daughter to allow her to do the blood tests and injections, Natalie ‘bribes’ her with a family story of her own grandfather’s time in the war.


Rose is a great little character, self-willed and often driven by the disease she’s battling. Natalie is real, flawed, hating what she has to do to her daughter to keep her safe, and often losing her rag doing it. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? Their story thread is wrapped around with that of Natalie’s grandad, Colin. They twist around one another, cross-linked here and there, very much like strands of DNA. They say blood is thicker than water – even sea water. It seemed that through their very different adversities, Rose and Colin taught one another ‘how to be brave’. A great bit of writing and one I’ll remember for a long time.

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