http://www.withloveforbooks.com/2018/07/skyscraping-by-cordelia-jensen-book.htmlSkyscraping by Cordelia Jensen - Book Review & Giveaway
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Review by Suze
It’s 1994 and Mira is a senior looking forward to her last year at high school. When she catches her father with his lover, a man she’s known for years, her whole world is being turned upside down. Her mother has recently returned home after a long stay abroad and she finally discovers the truth behind her parents’ marriage. Mira can’t process this news, she’s devastated that her whole foundation is apparently based on lies and she no longer knows who she is anymore. She stops caring and distances herself from everyone around her. Can she eventually find her way back to the Mira she used to be?
Mira hasn’t had the time to get used to her father’s relationship when tragedy strikes. She has to help her father when he’s really sick and he tells her his next secret, he is HIV positive. The illness is progressing rapidly and Mira has to make a difficult choice, will she hold on to her anger or can she let go, so she can properly say goodbye to her father? Can she forgive her parents for their dishonesty and her father for shocking her to her core to make the most of the time they have left together?
Skyscraping is an incredibly impressive emotional book. I was blown away by Cordelia Jensen’s beautiful verse and she perfectly describes Mira’s struggles and each emotional stage she’s going through. I had tears in my eyes while reading her story. Her whole life shatters, she has to deal with coming to terms with the family secrets, her father’s terrible illness and people’s reactions, both good and bad. Fortunately she’s surrounded with love, friendship and acceptance and this eventually helps her to cope. I loved how Cordelia Jensen describes her journey, it’s raw, honest and open and it completely took my breath away.
Cordelia Jensen is a fantastic author. She has a rare ability to choose the exact right words, which makes every line she writes spot on. There’s so much depth in her story and each of Mira’s feelings are being throughly and beautifully explored. Skyscraping is poignant with many different layers and several easily distinguishable and precious kinds of love. It’s a strong story about the way a fractured, but close family deals with a heartbreaking disease. Cordelia Jensen’s writing moved and transformed me, Skyscraping is absolutely brilliant. It’s a compelling must-read that will stay with me for a very long time.
Advice
If you love moving YA in verse you don't want to miss Skyscraping.
About Cordelia Jensen
I started my first diary on November 6, 1987. And I have been scribbling things down ever since. I remember once saying to a friend in middle school, “Wouldn’t it be the coolest thing in the world to, like, be able to write an essay about each of your friends?” She looked at me like I was crazy. But, well, here I am writing about teenagers.
For a long time I worked with teenagers. Along with my MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults, I have a Masters of Education in Secondary School Counseling from Shippensburg University. And for eleven summers I worked as a camp counselor for a very special summer program called Longacre Leadership (
www.longacre.com) I also attended Longacre as a kid and it is where I met my husband Jon Jensen (that’s another, longer story.)
Recently, my son asked me, “Mom, do you know why people like to do what they are good at doing?” And I thought about how long I have loved to write and how long I have been fascinated by kids and how, now, I feel so lucky to actually have a book deal and be able to write professionally for a group of readers I have always loved to watch and interact with. I answered him this way, “the more you like something, the more you practice doing it.”
I should have said earlier, yes, I grew up in New York City. However, after graduation I had the fortune to attend Kenyon College in rural Ohio where I was able to major in creative writing, which I adored. And some of the lines from Skyscraping I can trace back to writing I did in college. All this is to say, I practiced what I loved to do for a long time. And I am practicing still.
My daughter says she’s going to be a songwriter and a poet when she grows up. I find her in her room sometimes, bits of papers scattered around her, singing loud with her own words in her hand. I hope thirty years from now she is out there, somewhere, practicing still.
Creative play is the thing of life.
Links
Website // Facebook // Twitter
Giveaway
Five very lucky readers of With Love for Books will receive a signed hardcover copy of Skyscraping by Cordelia Jensen.
The winner will be notified by email and has 3 days to respond. All of our giveaways are international.
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