Title: How to be Brave
Author: E. Katherine Kottaras
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication: November 3rd 2015
Cover Rating: 3/5
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How to be Brave is an extremely sad, beautiful and wonderful book. I thought it was just going to be another book about some chubby girl trying to lose weight and find her way in life after the death of a parent but it was so much more than that.
Georgia just recently lost her mother due to sepsis that stemmed from diabetes. Her father is kind of a lost cause and she just feels lost. Her mother told her to live life to the fullest and that is exactly what Georgia intends to do. So her and her best friend devise a sort of bucket list and try to do as many things on it as soon as possible.
I thought this book was pretty great. The bucket list of things to do in order to be brave was awesome. I like that it wasn't a list of things to do before you die. Just things to do to get over being afraid of so much crap. There were certain things on the list that I don't think one needs to do in order to feel brave or live life to the fullest but everyone has their own opinions and interpretations.
There is plenty of High School drama in this book. Love, hate, pain, sorrow, depression and just overall life as a teenager are all very heavy in this book. The book has a lot of topics to pick from if you are looking for something specific. I think this book has a little bit for everyone. Even parents. They would get to see how Georgia's father responds to his wife dying and being left to raise a daughter.
One thing that did kind of take me by surprise was the who Evelyn thing. It just showed that even when people try to act like a bad ass they still have something they are covering up. And after the entire situation happened Evelyn's mother was a complete bitch about it. Saying she brought this to herself?!?! Ooohh, that part pissed me off entirely and I don't think I have ever wanted to slap a fictional bitch so bad in my entire reading career.
By the end of the book Georgia finds herself mad at her mother for not caring enough about her daughter to change her lifestyle so she could have lived a little longer. It is quite sad to know that her mothers condition probably could have been avoided had she just put forth and effort to actually live. From some parts of the book I can tell that Georgia loved her mother very much but she honestly wasn't much of a mother if she couldn't find the will to live for her own child.
The last thing I could like to say has to do with the cover of the book. The outfit the girl is wearing is fine. BUT there is this one specific item of clothing that is mentioned at the beginning of the book that I think the girl should be wearing instead. It is a dress her mother bought her that she decided to wear for the first day of school. I know authors have no say in the book covers pretty much but it's the little things that make readers happy and publishers should take that into consideration a bit more.
Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.
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