Title: A Heart in a Body in the World
Author: Deb Caletti
Genre: YA,Contemporary
Edition/Pages: Hardcover, 358 pages
Goodreads page

I stayed up way too late and cried my eyes out. But this book was amazing ❤❤

Summary

After a traumatic year, Annabelle decides to run from her home in Seattle to Washington DC. With the help of her “PR team” and Grandfather in his RV, she slowly makes her way across the country. She runs to forget everything that has happened. To punish herself for a tragedy she blames herself for.

Overview

This book is truly harrowing and I was sobbing my eyes out through the entire last chunk of this book. This book is beautifully written and covers such a difficult but important topic.

Content Warnings: The reason for Annabelle’s run is a mystery for the majority of the book, so most of content warnings are a spoiler. If you’d like to see the content warnings anyways, check out the spoiler portion of my Goodreads review here.

What I Liked

Literally everything.

1. I loved Annabelle’s character. I found her to be extremely relatable and realistic. And her emotions were so real and raw, I felt everything along side her.
2. In fact, I loved all the characters. Her grandfather brought the perfect amount of relief to an other wise dark story – he was kind and humous and inspiringly supportive.
3. This book was also very self aware – it made sure to acknowledge how dangerous a run like this is, now Annabelle’s coping skills were lacking, that her blame was ill placed. And I really appreciated that! This book did not glamorize these events in any way.
4. The way the message/event was finally revealed was so impactful I burst into tears immediately. I don’t want to say anymore than that, I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who is interested in reading this (and I definitely recommend you do!)

What I Didn’t Like

I have literally nothing to put here. This book was outstanding.

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This is book is extremely dark and intense – so please tread with caution if you are in a tough headspace. But if you are able to handle difficult subjects, I can’t recommend this book enough! I was seriously blown away by how much this book drew me in. It’s a beautiful story with a powerful message and powerful characters.

♥♥♥♥