Fierce Fragile Hearts // Blog Tour
Fierce Fragile Hearts by Sara BarnardFormat: Paperback
Pages: 384
ISBN: 9781509852888
RRP: $16.99
Trigger warnings: abuse, depression, PTSD, suicide
★ ★ ★ ★
'This time around, I'm going to be so much better. I'm going to prove to them that it was worth waiting on me.'
Fierce Fragile Hearts is the stunning companion novel to Sara Barnard's YA bestseller Beautiful Broken Things. It is about leaving the past behind, the friends who form your future, and learning to find love, in all its forms.
Two years after a downward spiral took her as low as you can possibly go, Suzanne is starting again. Again. She's back in Brighton, the only place she felt she belonged, back with her best friends Caddy and Rosie. But they're about to leave for university. When your friends have been your light in the darkness, what happens when you're the one left behind?
Fierce Fragile Hearts is the stunning companion novel to Sara Barnard's YA bestseller Beautiful Broken Things. It is about leaving the past behind, the friends who form your future, and learning to find love, in all its forms.
Two years after a downward spiral took her as low as you can possibly go, Suzanne is starting again. Again. She's back in Brighton, the only place she felt she belonged, back with her best friends Caddy and Rosie. But they're about to leave for university. When your friends have been your light in the darkness, what happens when you're the one left behind?
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"When someone knows you've been broken, all they see is the cracks. The knowledge colours everything, an extra filter between you and the world."
First off, can I just say, what a gorgeous novel.
Whereas Beautiful Broken Things is Caddy's story, this sequel is very much Suzanne's. In Fierce Fragile Hearts, we follow Suze – through all her highs and lows – as she navigates life as an independent 18-year-old.
Returning to Brighton, Suze is reunited with the town and the friends she loves. However, she soon realises that her friendship with Caddy and Rosie is not quite the same as it had been when she left: they've all grown up. And when they both move away for university, Suze believes she's on her own.
Then she meets Dilys, her 79-year-old neighbour. Dilys is generous and kind-hearted and immediately takes Suze under her wing. They bond over their shared love of music and eventually, for once, Suze actually lets somebody in. Dilys truly sees Suze and their relationship is by far the purest thing on this planet.
Relationships, both platonic and romantic, are dominant themes within Fierce Fragile Hearts and Barnard captures them expertly. In particular, the way she writes the intensity and complexity of the constantly shifting dynamics between teen girls is highly reminiscent of my own (and I'm sure many others') experiences during adolescence.
But relationship dramas are not the only issues that Suze has to deal with. With only a part-time job at a coffee shop and a small government allowance, she quickly learns how expensive it is simply to live: rent, bills, food... it all adds up. For a topic that affects many young adults around the world, it's rarely addressed in YA fiction so I really appreciated its inclusion here.
And, of course, there's the almost constant underlying concern that the next problem that arises may just be too much for Suze. That she simply won't be able to cope with it all. This is something that Suze herself acknowledges, but it also frustrates her.
"But really, what it does is remind me that he does worry about me, that I'm a person to be worried about, and that he thinks him worrying about me is something I make him do on purpose. And that all sucks, to be honest."
Fierce Fragile Hearts is not a novel about "curing" mental illness. It's about acknowledging your past yet not letting it define you as you move forward in your life. It's about the importance of having a good support system and both asking for accepting help when you need it. At times it can be heart-wrenching, but at its core, it's a tender and hopeful story about friendship, coping and growing up.
Thank you to Pan Macmillan Australia for kindly providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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Sara lives in Brighton and does all her best writing on trains. She loves books, book people and book things. She has been writing ever since she was too small to reach the "on" switch on the family Amstrad computer. She gets her love of words from her dad, who made sure she always had books to read and introduced her to the wonders of secondhand book shops at a young age.Sara is trying to visit every country in Europe, and has managed to reach 13 with her best friend. She has also lived in Canada and worked in India.
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You can check out the other Fierce Fragile Hearts blog tour stops here.
Niamh, xo.
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