Book Review: Tender by Eve Ainsworth

Title:Tender
Author: Eve Ainsworth
Publisher: Scholastic
Release Date: 1st March 2018

Synopsis: For Marty and Daisy, life is about pretending. Pretending means everything's fine. Pretending means not thinking about what's really going on. But the thing about pretending is, at some point, it has to stop. And then what? 

Review: This book... This book is important. Not only for me but for thousands of teenagers out there who are or have been in a situation where they are caring for someone in some capacity. It is possibly one of the most personal books that I have read in a while and so it is hard to write this review, not because I don't want to but because it is something that brings back a lot of memories and has really made me understand that it it is not something that has gone away but is very much still a part of my life.

One of the great reasons that I love reading YA is that it brings up and puts issues at the forefront of literature, issues that we need to be talking about. Especially ones that are experienced by teenagers every day, but that they don't know how to comprehend to talk about them. Caring for me was one of those things. I didn't and to an extent still don't think that I did anything out of the ordinary, but through my experience I got to meet so many brave children who did amazing things supporting family members. But once again I'm digressing and this is about this amazing book. The point I was trying to make was that caring wasn't an issue I had commonly seen in YA books (if there are pother books out there please point me in their direction) and so I'm glad to see books like these hitting the shelves and I'm grateful for authors like Eve for doing what they do. 

I love this cover first off, these redesigns are beautiful, so simple, yet bold and effective, especially here with the plaster trying to hold everything together. Bravo right there...

There is a real fluidity to all of Eve's books, written in this great almost conversational tone where you instantly fall in the narrative and get swept along by the story, the only problem I have is that I wish the books were longer. The first person narratives really help you get into the mind set of the characters who became so real in my mind, adding layer upon layer as you go on. They go through a journey and you're in the passenger seat next to them in for the ride. 

And it's not an easy ride, in fact its quite sad. I really resonated with Marty, he was a broken soul, but one with the best of intentions. He's a fighter with gritty undertones and a lot of pride. He's protective and he wants to do what's best. In many ways he's me. The amount of times he said a version of "I'm fine" and I thought about the amount of times I've said that, or I've hidden facts because everything was 'under control'. This made me want to help Marty, to sit him down and give him advice. 

This was why I was so glad he had Daisy, because she made him want to fight. Daisy's plight was a little bit different. My heart broke for Daisy, trying to hold together an idea or normalcy, when everything around her was far from. She felt the effects of having to live in an environment where there was little she could do and had parents who were at times to over protected of a situation. She wanted to and she tried to and this is where the young carers groups helped her. These groups are super important and i know they were great support to me, just to be able to do something, and to be able to express. I still have the worst graffiti art that I made of the word 'Angry' as part of a video project we made where we got to express how we were feeling through art.

Caring, like many issues that young people face isn't something we choose to do, or is something that is easily spoken about, but I can't reiterate how important books like these are to give voice to these issues. This book wasn't just sad, but also had heart and charm and within that dealt with sensitive issues. A lot of the time people talk about reading a book in one go, something I've never really been able to understand, because it often takes me ages to get through a book, but this was a book i devoured in one day, i couldn't and didn't want to put it down. I cried reading it and I cried writing this review and I think that's a good thing because it's all part of sharing an experience (another reason why this review became a lot about me - sorry!) which I hope we all continue to do. The YA community is one of the most receptive and open and I hope that we can all continue to be open about the issues that face us. 

Thank you for this book, I wait as ever on tender hook to see what you will write next!