Tag Archives: grief

Felice and the Wailing Woman

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by Diana Lopez

Felice, a twelve year old Mexican American girl, is being raised by her Uncle Clem since her mother and younger brothers drowned so many years earlier. As a result of her traumatic experience, she is extremely afraid of water and this fear holds her back in so many ways. One day, she discovers that her mother is the infamous La Llorona, a mythical creature that lives in the river and drowns anyone she can lure there. Believing that she can meet her mother, bring her some peace and overcome her own fears, Felice travels to Tres Leches, the border town where the tragedy occurred. Along with the mayor and two new friends, who also happen to be the offspring of monsters, Felice overcomes her fears and helps her mother accept her loss thus freeing the town from its curse.

This story weaves Mexican folktales and culture into a modern day fantasy piece that moves along quickly. The characters are well-written and quirky and the end is touching and magical. Recommended for those collections where a fantasy is appreciated.

The Leading Edge of Now

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“Trigger Warnings”: sexual assault, alcoholism, drug abuse, foster care, and grief.

The Leading Edge of Now tells the sad story of a teenaged girl, Grace, who is grieving the death of her father, and going to live with her uncle, her only living relative, who finally has claimed her from foster care where she has spent the past two years. Thankful to be out of foster care, she is nonetheless nervous about returning to New Harbor. So many memories that remind her of all she has lost: her best friend, her boyfriend, and memories of what happened that night two years ago at her uncle’s house when she was passed out on Ambien. “Memories are like land mines that I step on everywhere I turn.“

The characters are well developed with detailed backstories. I enjoyed this novel in spite of the very heavy subject matter.

Something Like Gravity

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Chris, a transgender boy nearly hits Maria with a car, and that’s how they meet. He’s visiting her town for the summer to get a break from his family and to try to recover from an assault he experienced at school after coming out as trans. Maria is grieving from the sudden death of her older sister. Without intending to, Chris and Maria find themselves tossed together over and over, and before long, start to fall in love.

The storyline is fine but it is somewhat unrealistic that Chris passes 100% of the time as a male. As far as the reader can tell, Chris has not had surgery or undergone extensive hormone treatments, etc., so it just isn’t really plausible that everyone would accept him as a male. That issue aside, readers who enjoyed Love, Simon or Simon and Eleanor may enjoy this book.

Pretend She’s Here

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Best selling author LuAnne Rice usually writes adult fiction but Pretend She’s Here is a venture into YA. The story, although featuring a teen protagonist, does verge on adult fiction given the seriousness of the plot, this psychological thriller is most suitable for mature high schoolers.

The story begins with Emily grieving the death from cancer of her best friend Lizzie. It’s been a year now but Emily just cannot accept that Lizzie is gone. She is happy when Lizzie’s parents and sister return to her town for a visit, but things take a dark and dangerous twist when Emily realizes how desperately they miss Lizzie, and to what extremes they will go to.

This page turner will leave the reader with a racing heart.

Rock by Rock, The Fantastical Garden of Nek Chand. By Jennifer Bradbury and illustrated by Sam Boughton.

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A delightful and true story of a remarkable man named Nek Chand who was victim of the Indian and Pakistani partition of the late 1940s. He and his boyhood family were forced to relocate from Pakistan to India during a government order to separate Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Within two years after the forced move his parents died, primarily of heartbreak, as Nek recounts, “Partition devoured them.” Nek grieved his parents, his childhood village, and his former life, as a million other Hindus were doing the same.

Nek then turned the energy of grief into productive, artistic energy. He began to build, clear, and create a beautiful space in the forest just outside his new village of Chandigarh, India. He collected cast-off materials, such as: rocks. bottles, scrap metal, glass, ceramic shards, ect. and arranged them into works of art. Soon, others discovered his secret! The village people loved it, but the city had plans for a road to be placed through his artwork. After much consternation the city decides to go through with their plan to demolish the work until the towns folk, including children, create a human chain to protect the garden. And now an estimated 5,000 people daily, from all over the world, visit Nek’s Rock Garden.