Genre: Middle Grade, Childrens Fiction |
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Plot: Eleven-year-old Shelley only leaves her bedroom for two minutes, but when she gets back, there's a real, true-life, lavender-eyed baby on her bed. It's far too noisy, smelly and heavy to be a ghost baby - so whose is it? It can't be her mum's - Shelley would have noticed - but it's not like she's around for Shelley to ask, anyway. She's too busy trying to get her horrible ex-boyfriend Scott ('the Toadstool') back, who Shelley definitely does NOT like as much as her mum does.
But someone's got to look after the baby, and give her a name. 'Celeste' sounds good (in fact, it sounds kind of magical) and so Shelley and little Celeste embark on some rather messy adventures, gain some new friends and realise that maybe some wishes can come true after all..
Review:
Thank you to Hot Key Books publishing for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I really love the purple and pink cover of the book and think it looks great on my shelf.
I enjoyed this book but I didn't love it. The book overall felt a little bland for me. It was okay but not really good or great in any way. I liked the protagonist of the novel, Shelly, as she was cute, fun and the reader immediately forms a connection with her when reading the book. Apart from Shelly, I felt that the other characters in the novel fell a little flat. I didn't feel any real emotions for the other characters in the novel. Celeste was entertaining but I didn't feel overly attached to her character either. I felt the characters were a little two dimensional and could've been more involved in the story.
The plot of the book sounded really intriguing when I first read the blurb of the book but I was very disappointed when I finished the novel. There was no real sense of arc in the plot of the book. I felt the plot was a little all over the place as there seemed to be no real structure to it. Things just happened out of the blue without any real explanation. I think the plot could have been better structured and planned out.
The mystery of Celeste at first was very interesting but after a point in the novel I just lost interest and stopped caring why she was there entirely. I found the metaphor of her interesting but I didn't really feel her presence was fully resolved in the novel.
I found the writing style to be a little jumbled at times. I know the target audience for the novel is not my own age group but a much younger audience and I think they would appreciate this novel more than I did. Usually I enjoy middle grade and children's fiction novels but I just didn't connect with this one.
Rating :
1 . 5 stars
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