Things You Can't Say
by Jenn Bishop
*Warning: This book deals with suicide, and so it is mentioned a lot in my review. The book level is 6th – 8thgrades, so if you are younger than that, I recommend that you wait until you’re a little older for this review and book.
Hi! Have you ever lost someone you loved? If you have, then you sort of know how Drew is feeling. Drew’s father killed himself. Drew has been going through a lot of hardships recently.
Drew is afraid that suicide could be passed down genetically (that means given from a parent to a child). His best friend, Filipe, has been ignoring him to hang out with a cool 9th grader named Theo. Drew has been having to be the dad in his family. And, on top of all that, one of Drew’s mom’s high school friends has been visiting. That’s a lot of stuff for a teenager to have to deal with! The whole book is about Drew trying to deal with these struggles.
This book was hard for me. It was a struggle to grasp the concept of suicide. Most books are a lot of happy with a little bit of sadness, but this one had Drew going through some tough things. This book would probably be a great help to some kids who have had one of their family members die of suicide.
One of my favorite things from this book was that it could have been real life. It can show you how a kid dealt with hard things happening to him. Drew had to go through a lot of grown up things before he was a grown up. He was really brave to do that. If you don’t have a real-life experience with dealing with suicide, this book can help you understand what kids go through who do have to deal with it.
This book stands alone as one that deals with the difficult subject of suicide and its effects on kids. At least I’ve never heard of another one.
Will Drew be able to deal with all of this hardship? Or will everything crumble to pieces? As I always say, read the book to find out!
A few helpful things I like to say about the books I read:
“Run and Get Mom” (how I describe the scariness factor – zero being not scary at all and five being majorly scary): 3
“Yucky-Lovey Stuff” (how I describe the romance factor – zero having no yucky-lovey parts in it and five having major yucky-lovey parts): 3
I give this book 5 wands.
This was a good book! Not only does it help you understand some of the problems in life, it is also just an amazing writing style, keeping you intrigued about what is going to happen next!
