The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James in Crazy Challenge Connection

Sep 24, 2019 Ashleigh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: diverse-reads, favorites, romance, sapphic-wlw-ff, 2019-favourites

Ashley Herring Blake is very good at writing middle grade books that make me want to bawl my eyes out. PLEASE WRITE MORE!

--------------------

The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James follows the titular character, a 12-year old girl, who at the beginning of the book undergoes a heart transplant. Normally, that would enough on anyone's plate, but add on, a dead father, a mother who abandoned her at 4, a ex-best friend and questions about her sexuality, and you've got Sunny's life.

After her heart trans Ashley Herring Blake is very good at writing middle grade books that make me want to bawl my eyes out. PLEASE WRITE MORE!

--------------------

The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James follows the titular character, a 12-year old girl, who at the beginning of the book undergoes a heart transplant. Normally, that would enough on anyone's plate, but add on, a dead father, a mother who abandoned her at 4, a ex-best friend and questions about her sexuality, and you've got Sunny's life.

After her heart transplant, Sunny decides she's gonna become a new Sunny; one with the bestest best friend (as soon as she finds a new one) and one that only thinks about kissing boys and hopefully has her first kiss with one this summer. Enter Quinn: a girl who is staying in town while her mother is photographing the island and the sea for her job. Sunny is instantly drawn to this new girl, and not just because of her shiny blue hair, and the two decide to become BFFs and embark on a quest to have their first kisses this summer. But Quinn doesn't seem all that interested in kissing boys, and Sunny can't stop thinking about Quinn.

Oh, and remember that mother than abandoned her at 4? Well, she shows back up after Sunny's heart transplant, and is determined to insert herself back into her life. But why now, after all these years? And what secrets is she hiding from Sunny?

I love Ashley Herring Blake's writing and story telling, but especially her middle-grade books. They have a way of sucking me in and breaking my heart and making me want to cry and cry and cry until I can't cry anymore. If you've ever felt that you're not good enough, if you've ever had a best friend tell your secrets to other people, if you've ever felt confused about your identity or alone, you will connect with Sunny. It's so easy to picture yourself in Sunny's shoes and my god, if this book didn't bring back past trauma for me haha. There were moments where instantly I was back to when I was Sunny's age, and it's scary time anyway, trying to find your identity and place in the world, without the cruelness of other people. To this day, I still have moments where I don't feel good enough and after having a soul-crushing week at work where I felt like nothing I did was good enough, this book brought all that back to the surface and my heart broke for Sunny.

The emotions I felt reading this book, urgh so many emotions! I highly recommend this book to everyone. I can't wait to read more of Ashley's middle-grade books. They are just so beautiful and thought-provoking and I wish I had read this when I was Sunny's age. So good! ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Feb 04, 2024 Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt, all-of-the-feels, childrens-and-middle-grade, for-a-challenge, 2024, f-f, great-side-characters, sapphic-favorites, read-on-my-kindle, contemporary

4 stars. This was beautiful and had me all in my feelings. Blake’s middle grade books are so emotional and full of heart (no pun intended). Sunny is a very lovable character. At the beginning of the book she’s about to have a heart transplant and she’s such a brave child. She makes a new friend, Quinn, and they go on a kissing quest to have their first kiss with a boy. Both aren’t really that interested in the quest, not the boy part at least. And then on top of that her birth mother is in town ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 29, 2020 Colleen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: illness-books, reviews

This book was so cute. I think what it does best is capture what it's like to be 12, not quite a teenager yet but not really a kid either, and still trying to figure a lot of things out (even if you're not LGBT, a chronic illness patient or an adopted kid though she tackled all these subjects really well!). The characters all felt really accurate to what I remember from that age. The romance is cute and age-appropriate. I loved pretty much all the characters. And *gasp* I don't actually have any ...more

Like · see review