Planet Grief by Monique Polak, 2018

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What a crappy way to spend a weekend. The always-sarcastic Abby would rather be playing soccer, and the cagily quiet Christopher thinks a grief retreat is a waste of time. Neither of them wants to spend two days talking about their feelings. But despite their best efforts to stay aloof, Abby and Christopher are drawn into the lives of the other kids at the retreat. Maybe their stories will make them rethink how they are dealing with their own losses.

(208 pages)

Going in, I was a little nervous that Planet Grief would be too heavy for me. A book about grief counselling doesn't exactly sound like the happiest of summer reads, especially when I already feel antsy thinking about death.

I'm glad I gave in to my curiosity and picked it up, though, because it manages to hit all the right spots. Abby and Christopher are realistic and sympathetic leads, and the other characters in the group are even more interesting and compelling. The various exercises Eugene (the counsellor) has the kids do, and the conversations he supports them through, are fascinating to watch.

Basically, this is a book about kids who have to be strong enough to pull through experiencing something no child should have to face: the death of a close family member. There's no strong plot to pull the book along, though there is a climax, and the story is really driven by the stories of the kids and their struggles. There's no sugar-coating, no skating past the hard emotions of losing a parent or a sibling, and I personally really appreciated "peeking in" on the grief process of these characters.

My only real complaint about the book is that there was one storyline, added just to add drama I think, which I thought was a bit ridiculous and unnecessary. It kind of drew attention away from the core of the book. It wasn't a huge deal, though, and I think Polak handled it in a way that still fit well with the rest of the book. I should also add that there's a family coming to the grief counselling which has two mothers, and there are a few mentions of how unusual it is to have "a maman and a mom." It's not made into a big issue, so I don't think it would bother most readers, but I wanted to mention it just in case.

All in all, I really–well, enjoyed might not be the right word to describe how I felt while reading Planet Grief. I appreciated it, let's say. I liked it. I'm glad that I read it, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in it.

What other books about children dealing with grief do you recommend? My all-time favorite is Suzanne LaFleur's Love, Aubrey!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Out of Tune by Norah McClintock, 2017

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When Alicia, a talented violinist at Riley Donovan's high school, is found bludgeoned to death in a field on the outskirts of town, suspicion immediately falls on Carrie, the teen's musical rival. But Riley isn't convinced of Carrie's guilt, and even though her police-officer aunt tells her to stay out of it, Riley goes searching for the truth. Did Carrie really kill Alicia in a fit of jealous rage, or is there another explanation for Alicia's death?

(122 pages)


This is a nice little murder mystery.

I know that sounds weird–"nice" and "murder mystery" aren't paired very often. But the truth is that Out of Tune is just the sort of novel I needed: a pure mystery, with a violent crime but no gory/explicit content. The basic scenario (a high school student enlisted to investigate the murder of a female fellow student who appears to be a "golden child") at first reminded me a lot of the much-gorier Running Girl by Simon Mason, but Out of Tune is frankly a little more my speed in the violence department. It's like an Agatha Christie murder mystery: the story starts with the crime, and then follows the main character as she tracks down the clues. We get a description of the crime scene in one of the beginning chapters but not much more than that. Actually, now that I think about some of Agatha Christie's book, this is probably actually a step down from those even.

I feel like so many of the murder mysteries I've read lately focused more on character drama (most of which didn't even wind up being relevant to the investigation), so I really appreciated how focused Out of Tune was. McClintock never forgets that she's writing a murder mystery, not a small-town drama. Granted, that does come at the expense of getting to know some of the side characters very well–a feat that's made doubly hard because you're expected to already know a bunch of the characters from the earlier books in the "Riley Donavan" series–but I personally didn't really mind focusing on the clues rather than on the characters pursuing them.
The reason I love Agatha Christie's novels is because she so perfectly blends interesting characters with fascinating crime investigations. While I've yet to find a murder mystery that does both of these areas as masterfully as she does, I'm finding that I much prefer the ones that err on the side of the crime investigations. This is the case of Out of Tune, which wound up being a perfectly satisfying who-dunnit with a logical, yet suprising, reveal–and a protagonist I still know little about. And I am perfectly okay with that.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.