Weave a Circle Round

Pros: interesting story, really captures the high school atmosphere

Cons: really captures the high school atmosphere, takes a while to get to the mystery aspects

Fourteen year old Freddy has enough problems in life - a neglectful mother and step-father, a deaf step-brother she resents, a genius little sister - the last thing she needs are crazy neighbours, Josiah and Cuerva Lachance. She's worked hard to maintain social invisibility at school, but when Josiah starts talking to her, she becomes a target for abuse. She and her sister are convinced there's a mystery with the neighbours, and intend to solve it, even as their step-brother warns them away from the pair.

This is a hard book to discuss without spoilers, but I'll try. There's a slow burn on the mystery of what's up with the neighbours and you don't really get more than hints until the half way point. Having said that, it's a quick read (took me two days), so you're not frustrated trying to figure things out.

There are some very realistic depictions of high school. I personally didn't enjoy high school so that's kind of a negative for me, especially since I straddled the not cool but not outcast social position Freddy's in.

I really liked Freddy. She's got some real issues and has a coming of age where she realizes that some of the things she did in the past weren't that great. Her interactions with her step-brother felt honest given her circumstances.

I liked seeing a deaf character in an important role. I'd be interested in seeing what readers with more experience with this issue have to say about the portrayal.

It's a fun, quirky, story.

I promised myself I'd write at least a mini review for each book I read this year, so that I can remember what I enjoyed about it, and then promptly broke that promise after reading this book. Hahaha. So here's a quick bit about why I enjoyed this.

Kari Maaren does an excellent job of bringing to life characters who transcend time and space, while marrying them to the world that we walk around in every day! There's time travel, snarky characters, a bit of magic, a LOT of mischief, and the kind of overall story that just makes you want to crawl into it and find out what happens next. I did part of this on audio, and loved both mediums! So if you're looking at possibly reading this, take the plunge. It's worth it!