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finesilkflower's review
4.0
Sunny's mom dies.
This book is a nonstop cryfest. It really feels like a true-to-life description of what happens when someone dies, those last few days, and it's a time that isn't often really described, but that a lot of people go through. There's a lot of mystery around it, especially for kids/teens, and I think that this book really helps to show the hour-by-hour of the kinds of things that actually happen. It shines light on a time that is usually clouded with mystery. The diary conceit works especially well here; ordinarily it's tough because the most eventful moments in a person's life are the ones when she has the least time to write in a diary, but this is a time when the narrator, Sunny, has a lot of random time on her hands, doesn't know what to do with herself, and has feelings to work out.
So it's effective in what it sets out to do, but I'm not giving it 5 stars because it feels out of character. In some ways this isn't a huge problem, because in momentous life events, aren't we all out of character? But I could have used some more specific character moments with, well, anyone.
Author Gratefully Acknowledges: Nobody, which means it's probably an Ann M. She is often quite good at writing the big life event books (weddings, funerals, etc.)
Timing: March 16 to March 30
Revised Timeline: Sunny is 23 in my revised timeline, for the record, though age is extremely irrelevant for this particular book. Losing your mom is horrible no matter how old you are, and either way you get the feelings of it's too soon/I'm too young/she's too young and all the other friends being baffled because they haven't had to deal with anything like this yet.
This book is a nonstop cryfest. It really feels like a true-to-life description of what happens when someone dies, those last few days, and it's a time that isn't often really described, but that a lot of people go through. There's a lot of mystery around it, especially for kids/teens, and I think that this book really helps to show the hour-by-hour of the kinds of things that actually happen. It shines light on a time that is usually clouded with mystery. The diary conceit works especially well here; ordinarily it's tough because the most eventful moments in a person's life are the ones when she has the least time to write in a diary, but this is a time when the narrator, Sunny, has a lot of random time on her hands, doesn't know what to do with herself, and has feelings to work out.
So it's effective in what it sets out to do, but I'm not giving it 5 stars because it feels out of character. In some ways this isn't a huge problem, because in momentous life events, aren't we all out of character? But I could have used some more specific character moments with, well, anyone.
Author Gratefully Acknowledges: Nobody, which means it's probably an Ann M. She is often quite good at writing the big life event books (weddings, funerals, etc.)
Timing: March 16 to March 30
Revised Timeline: Sunny is 23 in my revised timeline, for the record, though age is extremely irrelevant for this particular book. Losing your mom is horrible no matter how old you are, and either way you get the feelings of it's too soon/I'm too young/she's too young and all the other friends being baffled because they haven't had to deal with anything like this yet.
sammah's review
5.0
I didn't read this as a kid. I just...I don't know. I couldn't read it, I guess? I don't now. Anyway, I read it tonight and...wow. This is possibly the best book ever written by Ann Martin/the ghosties. It felt so real, so true to life, and it was intense. I bawled through it.
I lost my grandmother in January, my last living grandparent, and I was present for her death. I was also with her a lot in the days and hours leading up to that moment, and it did feel a lot like this. She wasn't able to speak during her last days on earth, just some quiet muttering, but she was able to communicate with us. Smile at us, watch us, listen to us speak to her. Losing someone is hard, and losing them young is even harder. I lost some aunts and uncles young, but the first devastating loss came at 17 when I lost my grandfather. Followed very quickly by the loss of my grandmother and two close friends of the family. It's hard, grief is not for the faint of heart, and I really felt for Sunny in this.
I'm still an emotional wreck. I can't believe a BSC-verse book did this to me. The last time I cried over a BSC book was when Louie the collie died, followed by the death of Mimi.
This one just felt almost TOO real, but that made it good and necessary.
I lost my grandmother in January, my last living grandparent, and I was present for her death. I was also with her a lot in the days and hours leading up to that moment, and it did feel a lot like this. She wasn't able to speak during her last days on earth, just some quiet muttering, but she was able to communicate with us. Smile at us, watch us, listen to us speak to her. Losing someone is hard, and losing them young is even harder. I lost some aunts and uncles young, but the first devastating loss came at 17 when I lost my grandfather. Followed very quickly by the loss of my grandmother and two close friends of the family. It's hard, grief is not for the faint of heart, and I really felt for Sunny in this.
I'm still an emotional wreck. I can't believe a BSC-verse book did this to me. The last time I cried over a BSC book was when Louie the collie died, followed by the death of Mimi.
This one just felt almost TOO real, but that made it good and necessary.
nikkibd4033's review
5.0
Read for the blog, but I'm not sorry I read it. And I'm completely unashamed to be giving it five stars. Absolutely positively the best book of the California Diaries series. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's Ann M. Martin's best book ever. Beautiful portrait of a 13 year old girl dealing with the heartbreaking loss of her mother. Far better than Martin's other book on parental death, With You and Without You.
glyptodonsneeze's review
5.0
Sunny's mom dies. That's it. Nothing else happens in this book. If you need to be reminded of what the days are like during the time that someone you love's life is slowly coming to an end, this is the book for you. I read this is in the morning and I was trying not to cry and have cry-face all day, but I was wounded and I leaked many tears. If I hadn't been trying so hard, I would have sobbed.
Sunny tries to go to school but doesn't go to class and no one says anything. Then she stops going to school. Then her dad tells her she can stop going to school. She's at home. Her friends come over. She sits with her mom, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. There's daytime tv. She's angry, she has no appetite, there are visitors. Her mom is lucid sometimes, then she's screaming, then she's out. The doctor says her mom might have three days left, and Sunny prays for those three days, then realizes that the pain might be too much, that dying soon might be the best thing for her mom, that she's suffering too much. There are memories. Then her mom dies. The last conversations. The whole process. The people who take her away. And the funeral. And the scattering of ashes. That's what it is. That's Sunny: Diary 3.
Sunny tries to go to school but doesn't go to class and no one says anything. Then she stops going to school. Then her dad tells her she can stop going to school. She's at home. Her friends come over. She sits with her mom, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep. There's daytime tv. She's angry, she has no appetite, there are visitors. Her mom is lucid sometimes, then she's screaming, then she's out. The doctor says her mom might have three days left, and Sunny prays for those three days, then realizes that the pain might be too much, that dying soon might be the best thing for her mom, that she's suffering too much. There are memories. Then her mom dies. The last conversations. The whole process. The people who take her away. And the funeral. And the scattering of ashes. That's what it is. That's Sunny: Diary 3.
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