JO : DRAMA QUEEN

I must admit that I find it really difficult to discuss this book. I finished it in one go, which is a good sign since it means I loved it so much. But on the other hand, I also read it so fast because it was just really easy to read. I know that I'm not the young adult age anymore and maybe it has to do with that, but I lacked a bit of depth in the book.

Jo is a great girl and narrator and the reader really roots for her. I was, until the end of the story, when she suddenly does something so stupid and so drastic that it just didn't make sense to me. It seemed out of character and it's my little pet peeve to hate on inconsistent characters. I immediately lost all sympathy for her.

She was just a bit too dramatic for me and though I understand her difficult background (she has a mentally unstable mother), I don't see the need for many of her actions. I admire her journey to finding her voice, but it would have been nice if she was less drastic and whiney about it in the process.

CHRIS : THE REAL HERO

Chris on the other hand was one of my favourite characters ever - even though he can't talk or do much. He has such a kind heart and I really wanted him to find his voice, or at least a way to express what he was thinking. The strength of Chris as a character is that he isn't a narrator and we don't even have dialogue with him, but Kim Hood shows us enough of his life and who he is to make us fall in love with him.

It's so important that there is diversity in YA and showing a disabled person as a real person is amazing. I think it will really help teenagers to start treating disabled people like they are just normal people you can be friends with. I applaud Kim Hood for tackling such a challenge subject in such an easy read.

However, I wish I would have had more depth about the disability. Because the whole story is narrated by Jo, who has (albeit common) preconceptions about disability, I don't feel we learned enough about Chris. Jo does make a journey into understand Chris better, but the whole ending is so fairy tale that the lessons that are learned are kinda lost.

RATING

I'll give this book a 3.5 out of 5 stars (yes, I'm doing half again). I didn't personally love it, but I think the topic is so so important that these kind of books should be encouraged. I think it's really one of those books that you should pick up yourself and read so you can decide if you love it or not. Even if you don't, like me, you'll still learn from it.

insightful

I would rate this book  5 stars

Jo spends most of her time as a carer to her mother,  who is mentally ill and getting better on and off.   A councilling session is soon made with the school psychologist and she finds a new opportunity,   to be a helper during her lunch break to a special ed student called Christopher.

Jo is a strong character for what she has to deal with all the time with looking after her mother who can sometimes be really hard to help,  to having to deal with schoolwork and maintaining friendships.

Christopher has a major form of cerebral palsy and listens to Jo when she talks about her problems and worries.

Throughout the book their friendship grows and they grow to understand each other more

A very good "issues" book. I managed to read this in one day in two sittings. It did feel like an information overload at the start, faced with mental health issues I'd not seen before and knew very little about. But the story unravelled about a girl, her mum and her friend Chris. It is definitely a heart-warming story and a really enjoyable read. The author really knew what she was talking about and it looks like she had personal experiences from the notes in the back of the book. I was worried the story could have been very Americanised but reading it I was imagining my old school, English buses, roads etc... so it definitely fitted in with the UK.

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

I decided earlier on in the year, when The Bookseller first announced that it was creating its own YA Book Prize for UK and Irish YA, that I would try to read all the 2015 shortlisted books once they were announced. Finding a Voice by Kim Hood is one of the titles nominated, and I was lucky enough to get hold of a reading copy through work. It's such a beautiful story!

Thirteen-year-old Jo has a tough life. Her mother has a mental illness, and Jo's her main carer. Sometimes there are good days, where her mum just seems eccentric and strange, and sometimes there are bad days, when it's all Jo can do to keep her mum from going right over the edge. Sometimes she can't. School is the only place Jo can escape the stress at home, but she doesn't have any friends because of her "crazy" mum. Then she meets Chris, a boy with Cerebral Palsy in the Special Education Unit after volunteering to help him out at lunch. Chris can't speak and has very little control over his limbs. It seems to Jo that most people fail to see the boy inside the disabled body, but Jo is sure Chris is more aware of what's happening than everyone else seems to think. She's determined to help Chris have a better life, but Chris isn't the only one who could do with some help.

I have to say, if it wasn't for the YA Book Prize, I'm pretty sure Finding a Voice wouldn't have crossed my path. It's been out since August, but I hadn't heard of it once. Which is such a shame, because it's such a beautiful debut novel, and really quite thought-provoking.

In a way, Finding a Voice reminds me of Amy & Matthew by Cammie McGovern. Both stories involve mental illness, and both have a teenager volunteering to help out a fellow disabled student. But that's where the similarities end. This is not a romance, this is very much a book about friendship, and it really is beautiful to witness how important Jo and Chris become to each other. Because of Chris' disability, Jo notices that the people who work with him - his carers, his aides and teachers at the school - either talk to him like he's a baby, or talk about him as if he's not there. At first, Jo isn't sure how much Chris is aware, and that's why she finds it so easy to talk to him. While visiting the Special Education Unit at lunch times to feed Chris, she finds it very easy to open up about how she feels looking after her mum, and very quickly, through his behaviour, she becomes aware that Chris seems to be listening to her intently. The fact that she is actually being listened to encourages Jo to talk more, but also to talk to him as if he's an actual, normal teenager. Jo has found someone to talk to, and Chris now has someone who's treating him like a person.

It's only when during one lunch time that Jo realises that Chris is flailing his legs to kick her on purpose rather than through lack of control this time, that Chris is trying to tell her something - he doesn't like the food. From that point on, Jo focuses a lot of her attention on trying to help Chris communicate. She knows Chris has things to say, he just needs a way to say them. Jo puts in so much work in trying to find ways to help him speak, thinking of ideas, in an attempt to make his life better. No-one else asks what Chris thinks, or wants, or likes, because he can't tell them. All decisions are taken away from him. Jo can't sit back and let this continue when she knows Chris wants to be able to tell people what he wants. It's really just incredible to see her try so hard to make things better for her friend. It's so heart-warming.

And it's even more incredible when you put this into context with her own life. Her mum suffers from a non specific psychiatric illness. At first I thought she had bi-polar; she would have very strange, eccentric days most of the time, or she would have terrible, awful days no child should have to witness. But it seems the doctors haven't been able to nail down a specific mental illness to her mum. Jo has to walk on tiptoes most of the time, trying to keep her mum calm and happy, keep the routine, keep things normal. The slightest thing wrong, and they're both in for days of heartache. Jo's mum's episodes are horrific to read about, and to imagine that Jo has had to deal with this her whole young life is so heartbreaking. And she's so scared to tell anyone how bad it can get some days, because she feels she'll be letting her mum down.

Finding a Voice is such an emotional story, and a really powerful one. It's an incredible debut novel, with such a wonderful ending. I implore you all to give Finding a Voice a read; I guarantee you'll find yourself moved.

Thank you to O'Brien Press via Foyles for the reading copy.