Grace Foley is a seventeen-year-old prankster and risk-taker. The only thing she's afraid of is losing. One night she accepts a challenge as part of a feud between the two local schools, but things don't go as planned. Something she can't explain happens and now she's haunted by voices and visions. She's drawn into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding a missing girl named Hannah Holt, and she's having trouble figuring out what's real and what's imagined. Grace is losing herself and she doesn't know if she's uncovering the truth or if she's going mad.

I don't know what made me request this book. Reading the blurb now it doesn't interest me at all. I found this book extremely hard to get in to. The writing was disjointed, it was hard to follow along. I did not like any of the characters. I just don't care. DNF @ 43%.

Thank you to Netgalley and Text Publishing for a copy of this book.

'"I suppose I would rather tell her how she makes me feel."

"How does she make you feel?"

"I would tell her that I like her hands. I would tell her that I don't like being touched, but her hands are the exception. I don't like to be made fun of - and she's done that, many times, either implicitly or overtly - but I would take her ridicule over her not knowing I existed, any day. I'd confess I don't like being wrong about anything but I hope I'm wrong about her - she's not right for me, I know that, but I want her anyway. I would tell her that being back here is only bearable because she's here too and, for the first time ever, I don't want to leave. I wish I knew how to tell her how I feel without bringing on an ending of some kind, but I know it's inevitable. And I would tell her I understood if she told me she didn't feel the same way."

"That's how she makes me feel."'

Exhibit A on why I love reading more than anything. Because who the fuck says something like that in real life?

You know how sometimes when you read a book, one that someone convinced you to try, and you are completely blindsided and blown away when you fall deeply in love with it? Well, that is exactly what happened to me when I read Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield. I have a very very select few of my absolute top shelf favorite books, and in my entire lifetime of reading it’s only got 8 books on it. One of those books is Friday Brown.

Falling in love with a book like that is actually rather rare. Though, when I find an author I love, I do immediately grab another book I may not dive into it right away. I worry that if I really hate a second book then it’ll tarnish the love of the first book. I can be a little bit of an over-thinker. Also, Vikki Wakefield has a very strange voice. It’s darkly poetic almost. When you read her books the cadence of the characters is just very… strange. It worked well in Friday Brown, but every time I would try to pick up All I Ever Wanted I would chicken out. The writing style in the first two chapters is slightly disconcerting at first.

I am so very glad that I pushed through it because this has got to be one of the most heartwarming books I’ve ever read. I told my close friend, who I’ve convinced to read it, that All I Ever Wanted was about beauty where most people would only see filth. That’s, I feel, the perfect description of what Vikki Wakefield does in this book. She tells a story of poverty, and crime, and what society would see as the ugly of the world and she fills your heart with all the love instead.

“When you’re a child, what you see and hear and comprehend can be sorted into little boxes. Then, as you live and learn, all those boxes open up and become rooms. The more you experience, the bigger those rooms get. If you’re lucky enough, there are some people you will love, and who will love you, long enough to see their boxes grow into vast spaces. You’ll understand things that had no meaning. You’ll find dark corners that only light up for the briefest moments. But when you keep getting lost, you just end up with a pile of boxes.”

Although this is classified as a YA novel, I would not at all recommend this to an impressionable teenager. Some of the things that happen in this book are likely too realistic for a young mind. I believe that a book for the young should have a certain amount of black and white. That what is ‘wrong’ is clearly addressed. However, as an adult, I know that things aren’t always that simple. Bad Guys aren’t always held accountable. And you know what, it wasn’t really the point of the story. The point of All I Ever Wanted was about roots. It was about family. It was about knowing where home is. Knowing who has your back.

‘Who, being loved, is poor?’ -Oscar Wilde

In the end I feel like I’m standing on pretty steady ground with this author. She’s written two books; I’ve read both of them. Both books made me cry. Both books get 5 stars.

If you liked this review, and want other great reviews about all kinds of books, come over to Badass Book Reviews for more!

Something about Friday pulled me in. Her mother Vivienne and the way she would recite the deaths of the Brown women off the top of her head like poetry with dates and circumstances, creepy but intriguing. She warns Friday that someday, she herself like all the Brown women, the curse will fall into her lap and water will be the culprit of her death. She can try to run from the curse or she can dive into it, and diving into it is literally what Vivienne has been doing for years. No matter the season, the temperature or the weather, Vivienne would dunk Friday’s head under the water, pushing her to hold her breathe longer each time. Her mother hoped this would help save Friday’s life someday. Such an interesting history, deaths caused by drowning and not all the same way. If I were Friday, I would be hesitate of anything having to do with water as you just never knew when you’re time on Earth might be up. With her mother death (I think you know the cause), Friday sets off to find her father. At the train station, she sees Silence and she’s fascinated by him. With nowhere else to go, she follows him to his squat where he lives with a small group of people. With nothing to lose, she holds up with them and she starts to earn money out on the street. It has to get complicated as she’s new and things on the street are difficult for everyone, people always want what is theirs and what is not. Friday has all these choices available to her and I liked that she doesn’t flaunt them but she lives life how she wants. Sure she makes mistakes but I relished in the fact that she doing the things she wanted to do without hurting anyone. Her mom while she was growing up told her about life but until now, she is finally learning about life and who she is. The writing was unique, there were no lavish emotions spilling out of the pages, those reactions came from me, the text was how it really was, facts and details.

      Reading Challenge

- I was my mothers daughter, destined to run...

- I was hardwired to run when I cared too much.

- Her laughter was short.  "We're all running."

I could have used this book for a few different catagories.  It was a story about children.  It takes place in an urban environment.  And it made a my emotions fling around like a whirly-ball.  After going over the list a few times, I chose R because running, leaving, is the main thread of this book.  Running, leaving, abuse and family.  

Friday Brown lived her life constantly running, constantly moving, with her mother.  When her mother dies she continues on the same path, constantly feeling like she needs to keep moving, stay away from anything that made her care.

I know I shouldn't think it, but I wonder how the story would have ended if she had followed her gut and ran one last time.