Thank you Walker Books for this book in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis:

An uplifting story of friendship, unity and hope that highlights the important and topical issues surrounding young carers and young refugees.

Fourteen-year-old Stevie lives in Lewes with her beloved vinyl collection, her mum … and her mum’s depression. When Stevie’s mum’s disability benefits are cut, Stevie and her mother are plunged into a life of poverty. But irrepressible Stevie is determined not to be beaten and she takes inspiration from the lyrics of her father’s 1980s record collection and dreams of a life as a musician. Then she meets Hafiz, a talented footballer and a Syrian refugee. Hafiz’s parents gave their life savings to buy Hafiz a safe passage to Europe; his journey has been anything but easy. Then he meets Stevie…

As Stevie and Hafiz’s friendship grows, they encourage each other to believe in themselves and follow their dreams.

Review:

I wanted to love this book. I really did. However there were a few elements about this book that kept hassling my brain and that did bring the rating down for me.

This book is based around Stevie and Hafiz, both with different pasts, a different way of life who take comfort in one another and help each other through the dark times in their life.

Stevie was a delightful character, with amazing taste in music! Stevie is mature for her age, which is no wonder since she not only looks after herself but also after her mother, who is bed ridden with depression and unable to provide for her daughter. While being a teenager, Stevie fends for herself, ensuring the minimal money coming into the household is spent wisely and would even use her own money to feed herself at school. I found that her fear was relatable as well, with the fear of her mother’s depression and their income from the government getting cut off. I think we forget that a lot of families out there are in this situation.

I also loved her love and faith in music to bring her positivity in her life. Even though Stevie comes from a tough home life, she is still filled with kindness and cares for those around her that deserve it. If you can find faith in music you can find faith in anything.

I took soo much from Stevie that I found Hafiz rather dull in comparison. Hafiz comes from a war-torn country and is living with his over protective Uncle and Aunty, full of fear of his family back home while they try to escape. Though Haifz has a big heart and doesn’t play the victim, I just failed to find him as intriguing as Stevie. I would have liked more energy from Hafiz, it seemed too much of a side character rather than sharing the spotlight with Stevie.

Though this book is about a beautiful friendship, I personally found the book dragged on. The start and end of the book were perfect, I loved the introduction of the characters and how they bonded at the end of the book while cleaning up the hate crime at the Asylum centre. The middle of the book I just kept questioning, is anything going to happen? Are they still talking? Where is this going? Is anything going to happen? I know that the story was getting built for the conclusion but I felt as though it lost consistently in the middle and unfortunately it lost my attention.

Overall it was such a beautiful idea and the story was quiet good but I needed more from this book. It could be that I have high expectations for contemporise? Though if friendship contemporaries are your thing I would recommend giving this a read, the writing was beautiful after all.

Rating: 3 ½

Publisher: Walker Books

ISBN: 9781406379235