Review: a good coming-of-age story, but not much skating
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 1, 2014
(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to P.J. Sharon and Netgalley.)17-year-old Penny is the youngest of 4 girls, and the only daughter left at home. Unfortunately Penny’s mother has lung cancer, and is dying right in front of Penny’s eyes.Penny has more issues though; she has an eating disorder, she’s not sure if she wants to carry on figure skating, her father acts like she doesn’t exist, and she desperately wants to feel loved.Is a new boyfriend the answer to Penny’s issues with love? And how will she cope with the death of her mother?This was a really interesting coming-of-age story, although I expected there to be more skating.Penny was an interesting character, and I admired how she dealt with all the stressful things going on in her life. It seemed like more and more problems got piled on top of her, and she did so well to keep it together, even one of these issues could have crushed her, but she kept right on going even when things were hard.The storyline in this was pretty good. I expected this book to be more about the skating (because of the cover and the title!), but the skating actually seemed like quite a minor storyline really. Instead we had a whole host of other hard-hitting problems like the death of a parent, and a whole load of other stuff that I really can’t go into because of spoilers. I did see some of these problems coming, but so many others were a real surprise, and I really liked not knowing what was about to happen next!There was some romance in this book, but the book was mainly about the journey that Penny went through. There were some really nice romantic scenes, and I really enjoyed them, but that wasn’t all that the book was about.The ending to this was pretty good, although I really don’t think that Penny’s troubles are over yet!Overall; a good coming-of-age story, but not much skating.7 out of 10.