Title: The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing
Author: C.K. Kelly Martin
Genre: YA Fiction
Reviewer: Aly
Book Blurb:
Losing weight over the summer gains Serena some popularity, but it also means discovering first-hand the pains of being a fifteen-year-old girl in a world that both sexualizes and shames young women. After narrowly avoiding exploitation in a shortlived relationship, Serena aligns with a new friend who was the victim of an explicit image that was shared at school. When Serena finds herself in a relationship with a new guy, she is surprised to find a different set of expectations. But have her previous experiences damaged her too much to make it work? As Serena struggles to find who she is as opposed to who she is expected to be, she begins sighting Devin - her older brother who disappeared months earlier
Review:
I have to say that this book was actually amazing and just a really, really good read.
I loved the voice that was used, or the narrator really. The way she’s described she could be any girl from high school. It wasn’t even hard to imagine myself in her shoes and it made me get into the book that much more. And being able to get into a book, especially one like this certainly increased my enjoyment of it.
The author drops little hints about what has gone on in the past and why Devin left. It was fun to try and pick up all the clues and create a big picture, discovering what all went on in Selena’s life.
The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing brings up a lot of different issues. The sexualization of females for example, or the double standards for men and women when dealing with sexuality. It was marvelous to see these issues be brought up and dealt with in one way or another. Especially because Selena handled it in a mature way and was helping others as well. Even when she didn’t always feel like she wanted to. I’m not saying she was perfect, she did have flaws but she was definitely a good, even great character.
I definitely felt that this was almost the story of my life, not necessarily the events but that I could experience those difficult things through Selena and really get a feel for those situations. I’m not saying that I would do everything like Selena or that she might appeal to different readers but she was the most enjoyable character to me in the book and the one that I felt closest to.
In The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing there are tons of situations in which you really wish you could just skip ahead. But I think this mirrors real life. There are always those things in your life that you wish you could have just avoided, many of them in fact, but you have to sit through them and just try to move on afterword. The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing captured a feeling of real life..
Throughout the book, we see almost how Selena grows up and matures. Maybe not over a long time but enough time passes to make the maturity seem natural and not as if she’s growing up too fast in order to suit the authors need.
The Sweetest Thing You Can Read deals with several relevant issues and captures them wonderfully as well as presenting ways to combat these issues without resorting to violence. I really enjoyed reading it and I think you will as well!
Rating:
About the Author
(Normally I would insert an author pic here but for some reason by computer won't let me :-/)
C.K. KELLY MARTIN’s bestselling debut novel, I Know It’s Over, was published in 2008. It was followed by One Lonely Degree, The Lighter Side of Life and Death, My Beating Teenage Heart and the sci-fi thriller, Yesterday. A graduate of the Film Studies program at York University, Martin loves good books, movies, music, web design, and Ireland. She currently resides in Oakville, Ontario.
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