Saving Red by Sonia Sones

I just finished reading a Young Adult book called Saving Red. People sometimes think young adult books are for readers between, let’s say, 14 and 20 years of age, but that’s not true. Young adult books typically have teen-agers as the main characters but the stories are far from teenybopper.

If you liked the Hunger Games series, the Divergent series, or the Twilight series, you actually read in the Young Adult genre.

Any book in the Young Adult genre will be fast-paced. That’s one of the things I like about YA. The action starts right away and the reader isn’t stuck on pages of description of the carpet, or weather, or what-have-you.

Saving Red is no different. I mean, just read the inside flap:  “My name is Molly.  This book is about me. I’m probably the guiltiest person who ever lived…” I checked this book out from my library solely on the cover design and inside flap blurb.

But when sat down and opened the book, ready to read, I realized the whole thing was written in verse. Crap. I was looking for a good novel. 

Courtesy of Google Images

But then I thought about another book written in verse, Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech. That book ripped my guts out. (You gotta read that book, by the way.) 

So I thought I’d give it a go. I read the whole book in 2 settings within a 24 hour period. About 4-6 hours was all it took.

This is a story about a teenage girl, Molly, who tries to help a homeless teenage girl realize that going home is safer than living on the streets. The problem is, the homeless girl has literally went off her meds and is pretty much crazy. 

Not many fictional stories take on a topic as tough as mental illness. Even less have a likable main character with a mental illness. To top it all off Molly’s family is going through their own hell dealing with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Her mom is always high on doctor prescribed marijuana (talk about opening a can of worms!!!), and her dad is a work-a-holic lawyer.  

See?  Intriguing, isn’t it??

This is the one and only page in the book that
the verse rhymes. I laughed out loud when I
read it! That author is a trickster!

Check out Saving Red by Sonya Sones. You won’t be disappointed.  (In fact, you’ll be thinking about it for much longer than it will take you to read it.)

Until next time,

Be Good to Yourself,

~Nadine