Category: grief

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Shorelines by Ruth Ennis 

It’s been a while since I accepted a book to review – life has been incredibly busy over the last year! – but I just couldn’t resist the opportunity to dive into Shorelines by Ruth Ennis.

The lovely people at TheWriteReads described this book as a reimagining of HC Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’.

This YA fantasy novel in verse follows Muireann’s story.

Between a dying ocean and a divided world, a mermaid must choose between the sea that made her and the surface that might break her – in this stunning novel in-verse.

Muireann is a mermaid – fierce, curious, and proud of the body that keeps her warm beneath the waves. But life in the ocean is becoming impossible. The merfolk are at war with climate change that has ravaged the sea: food is scarce, and her twin sister was killed in a mass-fishing net. With her mother lost in grief and her world falling apart, Muireann dreams of escaping to the surface.

But the human world isn’t the haven she hoped for. It’s colder, crueler – and here, her large body is seen not as strength, but as something to be ashamed of. Muireann must find her voice and decide where she belongs –  beneath the waves, or above them.

Firstly, I love that Muireann is fat; that all the merfolk are. It feels so incredibly logical, given the survival mechanisms of marine mammals. I also love how strong her voice is – when I read novels in verse, I often find that if they’re told in first person, the poetry sort of overrides the sense of the character. That doesn’t happen at all here.

I love the layout of the poetry – the way that words and shapes interact. Here are a couple of examples that I thought were especially wonderful;

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In particular, this following poem really stood out to me. The alignment of the paragraphs to portray a conversation is so clever! No need for quotation marks, disrupting the very clean aesthetic of the verse that’s upheld throughout.

That said, the layout can get a little challenging at times. I found the following segment took a few reads before I figured out how it was intended to be read (i.e. bottom to top… I think). I wouldn’t necessarily want to change the format – I think it works so well as part of the metaphor of Muireann rising to the surface – but I might have liked an illustration that led the eye on this page, or at least something as a visual clue for where to start.

I think in general, that would be my main criticism of the book – the illustrations are beautiful and fit the tone fantastically, but I think there could have been a little more cohesion in how they were used.

It’s a minor point though, and it’s really all I’ve flagged as I read the book. I would still – and have already – recommend this to friends and family. As ever, I don’t really believe that children’s books should be confined to being read by children only, so I’ve sent links to this to numerous adult friends. It really is a spectacular offering in the ‘fairytale retellings’ genre. Along with Cinder House by Freya Marske (Cinderella), it’s possibly my absolute favourite.

A note on the ending: This book follows the HC Andersen version of The Little Mermaid, not the Disney one. It does so beautifully, I might add, and as someone who spent a lot of time at university studying Andersen, there’s a sense of ‘Finally!’ to this ending for me. I do understand, though, that not everyone is a lover of the bitter-sweet, so I do think it needs saying.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the different endings to The Little Mermaid, and I would love to hear of any other particularly good fairytale retellings you know of! Comments are always lovely, and it’d be great to chat books with people! Alternatively, you can find me over on Bluesky 🙂

Much love!

Fran xx

I’ve set up a ‘bookshop’ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Shorelines this way, please just click here. If you’d like to support the running costs of this website without buying a book, you can do so here. Thank you.

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Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau

Bloom by Kevin Panetta and Savanna Ganucheau is an absolutely gorgeous book. It reminded me a little of Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, both in terms of character design and artwork, which – since I loved Heartstopper – was a very good thing.

The story follows Ari, who wants to move away from his family bakery to play in a band with his friends. When baking-enthusiast Hector gets hired to help out after Ari is gone, Ari finds himself with a new reason to stay.

This is such a sweet romance – pun intended – and I loved the soft palette of grey-blue used throughout. I thought it really added to the mood. There were some moments where I wished that certain toxic friendships had been dealt with more instructively, but I do get that this is a representation of real-life struggles amongst teens/young-adults rather than a manual for How To Life. And I wish that there had been some more conversation about what happened following a certain altercation towards the end – Hector deserved better damnit – but overall, I thought that all the conflict was wrapped up nicely by the end.

This is another book for older readers, much like Boy Like Me, where it’s super easy to read alongside your child – the graphic novel format makes it quick, and it’s a breezy delight compared to the real world. Goodness knows I appreciated the happy place it provided for a few hours. And now I get to chat about lovely books with my eldest kiddo, which should keep the world at bay for a little longer.

Do you have any favourite graphic novels? Have you read Bloom, or Global, or The Power of Welcome? I would love to hear your thoughts and recommendations!


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I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Bloom this way, please just click here. If you’d like to support me without buying a book, you can do so here. Thank you.

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Glitter Boy by Ian Eagleton

This is a screenshot taken from Ian’s Bluesky feed- you should go and give him a follow if you don’t already

Ian Eagleton, like most children’s authors I’ve spoken to via social media, is actually one of the loveliest people. I remember watching on Twitter, back in the day, when Mariah Carey – yes, ACTUALLY Mariah Carey – praised his book. It was one of – if not the most – magical thing I ever saw unfold on the platform.

Naturally, being a trendsetter, I’d already read Glitter Boy by that point, and I absolutely agreed.

Glitter Boy is a story about grief, and figuring out who you are, and acceptance, and hope. It follows James, who loves dancing to Mariah Carey with his Nan, but who is being bullied at school for being gay, even though that’s not a label he’s attached to himself. While James is very much the main character, the main character arc of the story – to me at least – felt like James’s dad’s. Initially, he spends a good chunk of the book trying to get James to conform, in an effort to make his life easier, but towards the end, he accepts that it’s everyone else who needs to change, and becomes a good advocate for James.

I really love the complex and loving family that Eagleton has written in this book – I love that James’s dad is the primary carer, and that he needs to work through his own ideas of what masculinity means in order to better be there for his son. I love that some questionable actions are coming from a place of good intentions; parents are fallible and in having James’s dad own his mistakes, it almost gives any parents reading permission to do so. And it lets young readers see that change is possible, that grown-ups can be wrong too – and that we can right ourselves. The reasons James’s dad gives for his actions might also help children to understand some of the – admittedly questionable – choices adults make.

I think I said this before, when speaking about Jamie by LD Lapinski, but I’m never really sure how much of myself to put into these reviews. Books are art, and good art elicits emotion, after all. So, I think mentioning my own relationship with my Nan adds something here. My Nan – my best friend – died when I was in my early 20s; I was in the final throes of my dissertation and working an almost-full time job to get by. I didn’t really have time to grieve. My grief came in little waves at inconvenient moments through the later years. Reading this book and getting to grieve along with James was cathartic, even after all this time. So if there has been a death in your family, this might be the ideal book to offer to any child currently grieving.

What are your favourite books with fallible adult characters? Have you read Glitter Boy yet, or did you see Mariah’s post? As ever, I would love to hear from you.

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I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Glitter Boy this way, please just click here. If you’d like to support me without buying a book, you can do so here. Thank you.