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LondaLocs

LondaLocs

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Kiese Laymon
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Counting by 7s - Holly Goldberg Sloan STANDING OVATION!!

I have this slightly odd habit. I only do it when I encounter a truly fantastic book, and well it happened last night.

See... I usually start reading a book while standing at the bar in my kitchen. Everything lands there when we get home...library books, school work, junk and not-so-junk mail. Most of the time, when I get a new book, being the nerd I am, I can't help but read the first few pages. From there I USUALLY put the book on the shelf, or in my bag, or somewhere else. Once in a great while, the book will get stuck to the counter and I find myself stuck with it like Pooh to his Hunny Jar. Yesterday, after the rest of the house was snoring, I decided to read the first few pages of Counting by 7's. Three hours later, I was still standing by the bar when my devoted hubby asked me if I knew what time it was! No, I didn't and thank goodness I had just finished because it was pretty dang late!

This book is wonderful! Willow is an awesomely wonderful child who seems a bit 'aspergery'. She never really fit in anywhere until tragedy forced her and special people around her into a 'new normal' I can relate to this story on so many different levels and I am sure that many others will too. It is a perfect match for the middle-grade audience that it is written for, and I highly recommend it.

There is one issue that I have with this book that almost caused me to rate it a 4, I had a real problem with Pattie conveniently hoarding all that money while her children suffered the living conditions they endured at the garage. Perhaps Sloan wanted us to realize that the situation with Willow forced her to finally open her eyes, but it is really hard for me to believe. but any book that keeps me standing for 3 hours, deserves a pass for one or two flaws.

Bravo!

Edit: As I kept thinking about it, I am going to have to go with a 4 because of the spoiler above. A 5 means that I would not change a thing about the novel, or if I would change/prefer some detail change, it would have to be very minute. Still a really fantastic read though!