Cathy Cassidy

As the story opens, Indigo (our narrator), her mother, and her baby sister are all moving out of the house they live in with Max, her mother's abusive boyfriend. They move to a run down basement flat - all her mother can afford. At school things aren't going well either. Indigo's long-time best friend, Jo, seems more interested in boys and the new girl, Aisha, than in her friendship with Indigo.
Things are beginning to look up when a nice man in the apartment building starts showing an interest in her mother; her teacher and their landlord turn out to be much nicer than they seemed at first; and Indigo begins to realize what the reader knew all along, that the new girl, Aisha, would be a much better friend than Jo ever had been. But then Max shows up again.
This heartfelt story of a child suffering from her mother's unwillingness to get rid of an abusive boyfriend has a sad ring of truth to it. The only thing that doesn't feel true to life, is the happy ending... important for a middle grade novel, but unfortunately, probably not the way situations like this one normally end.… (lisätietoja)

Well, there's not a lot new stuff to say about this, but I loved it like always!

This book is most likely my favourite book, the pick-me-up I always read to improve my mood, the book that I relate a lot too, the one that has seen me through a lot. I've read this one so many times, but I still keep going back for more!

I've only read three of Cathy Cassidy's books, Dizzy and Driftwood are the other two, but this one's my favourite. This was most likely the first romance oriented book I read, and I still love it. I might actually have read this book near to 10 times, bu this is the first time I've read it with a Goodreads account.

The main reason, probably, that I love this book so much is that it deals with moving to a new place where you know near to no one. You hate it at first, wanting to go back, missing your friends, your school, the place, the air, the weather, the old accents, etc., etc. My family moves every 4-5 years, so even though I only remember moving and missing a place 3 times, it was enough to make me fall in love with this.

The way almost no one talks to you on the first day, the way their talking is different, even though you're speaking the same language; the way you don't make friends like the ones you had, but they're good friends nonetheless; the way your old friends miss you, but somehow never as much as you miss them; the way you miss your old house, the way you lived, the freedom you had, the things you did, all that and so much more is depicted in this book, and I loved it for that.

Though I've never moved to a place that's as drastically different from where I lived before as in this book, and thankfully never had to face the financial problems the characters face in this, I've still related to it.

The romance is one of the main points of this novel, and I'm reasonably sure this book's what made me fall in love with the romance genre. But more than that, I love the friendship aspect, the way Anya doesn't really like Frankie and Kurt, and feels like she's settling for the best she'll ever get, but then realises these are the best friends she could have ever gotten. I've found, in my experiences with new places.....it's usually the ones that hang on the outside that you should make friends with....those are the best people you'll ever find.

One of the other aspects of this book I like: the bakery, and the cooking, and the cakes, and the muffins, and the milkshakes, and, just, in general, the sweet goodies that I love and now want to eat! (seriously, my stomach is grumbling just from writing the names)

I loved it, once again, and I recommend it to anyone who likes sweet romance, books that deal with new places, and likes cake!… (lisätietoja)