Stones by Polly Johnson

Stones (2013) (The Friday Project)

Polly Johnson

Grade: C

Genre: young adult

Source: NetGalley 

YA Reading Bingo Challenge 2014: A book with a female heroine 

Sixteen year old Coo is finding it difficult to grieve for her deceased brother. Sam had been a perfectly adequate older brother when they were both younger, but once he found drink, he turned into a different person. Life with this new Sam had been depressing and at times, unbearable. For Coo, her needs were always marginalized or forgotten and her parents seemed to have little consideration for the effects of Sam’s behaviour on her. Her parents would breathe a sigh of relief when he didn’t come home, yet never turned him away when he returned, reeking of alcohol with an undercurrent of violence.

Saving June by Hannah Harrington

Saving June (2011)

Hannah Harrington

Grade: D

Genre: YA
Sex scenes: one scene, fade-out-ish

Source: NetGalley

June had always been the perfect daughter. The eldest of two girls, she was the prettier sibling with the perfect grades, perfect GPA, perfect friends, perfect extra-curriculars with the brightest future ahead of her. Harper is the rebel child: she’s never been able to live up to her parents expectations of her and so has taken to smoking, never expanding her clothing choices beyond a hoodie and jeans and barely scrapes by in school. June’s suicide leaves a chasm that the defiant Harper has no wish to fill.

No one had had any idea that June was suicidal; she hadn’t even left a note. Harper had been the one to find her: lying as if asleep in the backseat of her car, still in the garage, an empty bottle of sleeping pills beside her. Their family life had already been pretty dysfunctional what with their parent’s less-than-amicable divorce, but now so more than ever. Harper’s father has disappeared off into his new life with his new girlfriend and her mother is like a zombie, unable to go through the motions of everyday life without the pious Aunt Helen to coddle over her. Everybody is distraught but Harper can’t even cry.