Amazingly real YA fiction

Sorry for the long delay again. My day job was consuming my life, but in a completely good way. I am up for promotion! In other good news, I have finally processed my review for the book I mentioned two weeks ago. The book releases October 9th, and I really feel it is worth the pre-order.

Althea and Oliver by Cristina Moracho

The cover makes no sense until you read the book. So this is one where you really don't want to judge it first. While my book of choice is an epic fantasy of some variety, then maybe a steampunk novel, this book rocked me. 

The pace of the novel was well suited for its intended audience. The author is presenting choices and their repercussions to the teenage market. What we do will affect what we are; not just at the time of incident, but much further down the road as well. This book is great for coping with the hard choices we don't know we have to make as youth. The good decisions can have as many pitfalls as the bad, so how do we know which ones to make? Moracho writes a beautiful tale of the agonies of making decisions and dealing with the consequences with grace. This is a story of how to move on with life when it seems like all you have is lemons, and when moving on is the best choice for the future despite how much it hurts.

This novel is certainly meant to be dramatic. There are many rough moments, but I didn't feel the need to live next to the tissue box. However, this is a book that is going to impact people in so many different ways. I connected with Althea, who doesn't have a lot of tear-jerking moments; more like gut wrenching heartache.

The ending is not your typical story book happy ending, but is so sweet and beautiful. I highly recommend this novel to everyone. Parents to understand their teenager, teenagers to understand they are not alone trying to figure out how to make decisions, and those in between just to appreciate the story.