Reviews

Finished on November 17th
I'm still wiping away my tears as I'm writing this review and I'm not quite sure if I can find the right words to describe what I felt when reading this book. It's a book about loneliness, grief and the toll that grief and trauma can take on a person - but it's also about finding love, acceptance, belonging and knowing that there's people around you that care about you and that want to help you if you let them.

The way Nina LaCour has written about sadness, loneliness and grief in this book made it feel real. For me, it made it easy to relate to the characters. There's a lot of emotions, feel and poetry in her writing that makes it difficult to put the book down. I wouldn't describe it as an "easy read" because the subject of the story is quite heavy and emotional. As I said, it's difficult to put down, but it's also a book where you want to take your time reading it because of the importance of the story it tells.

I would recommend it to people - but please do make sure that you're in the mindset to read a story like 'Watch Over Me' - I'd advise anyone to read into it before deciding to read it.

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emotional reflective sad fast-paced

3.5

“I'm learning that it's good to think about what scares you. To bring it into the light. Even to hold it in your hands, if you can, and feel how it can't hurt you anymore. To think of it and say, 'I am not afraid.”

➽ Watch Over Me is another haunting story by Nina LaCour who writes melancholy and healing so well. We follow Mila, who just aged out of the foster system and is invited to intern as a teaching assistant at a remote farm. I really liked the setting as it's isolated and haunted by ghosts that Mila has been able to see since she was little. The magical realism element fits well into the story and the author's writing style. Mila has been through a lot before she ended up in the foster system and it's slowly coming to light the longer she stays at the farm. I loved the themes of healing from trauma and confronting your personal ghosts. Mila isn't used to belonging anywhere so the farm is her chance at finding a place and family of her own. I especially liked the bond she had with Lee, a young boy who is her only student so far. He's also been through a lot and Mila is determined to help him heal from that.

➽ I only wish the story had been longer and more fleshed out. Apart from Lee, most characters felt one-dimensional and we didn't get to know them as well. The other adopted children didn't have any personality. There was more potential in the story and with more time we could have used that to deepen the story. Aspects like Mila's relationship with Liz and Lee were underdeveloped and not really resolved.

I had the impression that Mila was crushing on Liz, but nothing came of it. For a while I thought there would be a polyamorous relationship between the three of them, but nothing came of it.

While I liked the writing, it could sometimes be a bit too simple and overall the story didn't stand out to me.

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