Gwyneth Rees

I had been in a bit of a reading and reviewing funk so when this turned up in the mail I couldn’t believe it. Publishers still wanted to send me books to review? Even when I hadn’t posted anything in ages? I wondered if Bloomsbury had made a mistake, but as I was at the end of Brisingr (by Christopher Paolini – yeah I’m still going with my Inheritance Cycle Series Binge Read) I put this one at the top of my pile. And then I read it in a weekend. So proud of myself! And here is the expected review…

As you can see it wasn’t the wonderful book ideal for getting me back into reading that I wanted. But I was determined to get through it so I did. Cherry Blossom Dreams tells the story of Sasha, who, at almost thirteen, is learning how life gets more difficult the older that you get. She has two best friends that don’t get along with each other, a crush on her friend Lily’s older brother, her mum is dating her teacher and she can’t tell anyone, and then there is Blossom House – a secret Sasha and her twin brother have been keeping as their own secret hideaway.

I wonder if part of the reason I didn’t connect with this novel is because at 21 I’m pretty far out of the target age. But I was that age once and I can still appreciate good children’s lit. But I didn’t really enjoy this. There was a lot of explaining and telling and long tangents that felt unnecessary – the whole way through the novel I felt like a twelve year old was rambling straight into my brain without pause and it was not a pleasant experience. She just didn’t stop talking and I found it very difficult to even care about her longwinded family history or her friendship dilemma (which was one of those super obvious ones) or her silly crush on her friend’s brother. The only thing that seemed interesting was the house itself, but the supposed magic about it went out of it when the secret was revealed – only it seemed to go straight over the heads of both Sasha and Sean who had no idea of the gravity of what was uncovered and couldn’t work out why it had made the adults in their lives so upset. And yet we were supposed to believe that Sasha was so mature for her age because their mother had been emotionally distant? I didn’t buy it.

There is not a great deal more to say about this book, but someone else closer to the target age range might enjoy this more than I did. It does have mystery and secrets and friendship issues and other things that may be relevant to kids that age, even possibly myself ten years ago. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this much.
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