So with everything that’s going on in the world right now, with the uncertainty growing every single day and updates coming in every single hour, it felt like the month of March would never end. I’m incredibly grateful to still be working from home during this time, because I know that others haven’t been so lucky, and I hope everyone is staying safe. On a lighter note, I was able to get some serious reading done in March (thanks in part to The Bookie Trials Royal Weekender, a weekend-long readathon hosted by Rachael Marie on YouTube **edit June 2020, I no longer support this creator due to her views on minorities and other creators, so I am removing all links to her channel and putting this disclaimer on all videos discussing her**), and it was pretty hard to decide which book to talk about as my favorite. So, I decided to combine two types of blog posts in one and talk about an ARC I received, which also happened to be one of the best books I read this month.
So I’ve primarily received ARCs from entering giveaways on sites such as Twitter and Goodreads, and sometimes I forget I’ve entered them until a publishing house messages me asking for my mailing address because I’ve won. Such was the case for Little Universes, a YA contemporary book by Heather Demetrios which releases on April 7th, 2020 – the day after this blog post goes live if everything works out. Fierce Reads messaged me saying that I’d won a copy of this book I’d heard little about, and when it arrived on my doorstep I was intrigued. I read little of the synopsis before diving in, and was absolutely blown away. I suppose now’s a good time to tell you what the heck this book is even about.
In late August, the summer before their senior year of high school, Mae and Hannah receive devastating news: a violent tsunami has struck the island their parents were vacationing on in Malaysia. When it becomes clear that their parents won’t be returning home, these two sisters are forced to move across the country from California to Boston, while struggling with uncovered secrets that should have stayed buried, past events coming back to haunt them, and facing a future full of uncertainties at every corner. Mae and Hannah both have different ways to cope, and while this traumatic event should have brought them closer, cherishing the family they have left, the wave might be the one thing to tear them apart for good. **Trigger warnings: death of a parent, grief, substance abuse, discussion of abortion, attempted suicide, cheating. Please look up other reviews for additional warnings, because there might be some I missed**
I knew this was going to be a powerful novel about two sisters grappling with the loss of their parents in a tsunami. What I didn’t expect was to finish this 469-page book in under three days, while several experiencing several emotional reactions during that period. Heather Demetrios uses dual perspective, allowing each of her main characters to develop a distinct voice and signiture beginning their respective chapters – Mae, a hopeful-future-astronaut, begins her chapters with the International Space Station location, and the Earth date and time, while Hannah, a suffering poet, leaves us little acorns to read to understand how she’s feeling. I’m not usually one to read books that deal with heavier topics, especially in the current state of the world, however I do believe that they are important and necessary. This book tackled addiction pretty heavily, and I think the dual perspective helped to emphasize the fact that one person’s struggle can affect the people around them, in varying ways. Grief is also an overarching theme throughout the novel, and what I really appreciated was the exploration of indivual resposes to traumatic events, and how you are not “less than” if you do not grieve in the way everyone’s expects you to. While I did enjoy some parts of the story that love interests Ben and Drew brought to the table (Ben’s nerdiness to compliment Mae’s and Drew being able to make Hannah feel seen), I did find it unnecessary to give both girls a romance, especially so early on in their move to Boston. This book is not perfect by any means. It doesn’t shy away from the ugly, but underneath it all there is still a message of hope.
As the youngest of three sisters, this book made me want to call them to say “I love you,” and repeat it over and over because you never know where life is going to take you. I think the last line of the book’s synopsis sums it up pretty perfectly: “Little Universes explores the powerful bond of sisters, the kinds of love that never die, and the journey we all must make through the baffling cruelty and unexpected beauty of human life in an incomprehensible future.” Heather Demetrios does an incredible job at delivering a powerful novel full of loss, hardship, struggle, and recovery. Happy book birthday to Little Universes, and if you’re looking for a read that will have you hugging your family tighter than ever, I highly suggest picking it up today.
Places you can find Little Universes:
Goodreads
Amazon
Heather Demetrios Twitter
Macmillan
Thoughts About Things 