Take a photo of a barcode or cover
wordsofclover 's review for:
Water in May
by Ismée Williams
2.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from Amulet Books (Abrams&Chronicle) in exchange for an honest review.
Mari Pujols is fifteen and pregnant but she can’t wait to meet her child until she finds out he only has half a heart. Now Mari is facing the toughest choice she can make as a mother - continue with her pregnancy and risk losing her baby at the end of it, or have a termination.
This should have been a very emotional, impactful story and while parts of it definitely were, I think other parts let it down a bit.
Mari is a tough cookie, to sum it all up in one. She is a fighter because she’s had to be and she hasn’t had it easy in life with parents that abandoned her and an abuela who didn’t treat her as well as she should have. And now her baby is sick on top of it all. But she’s just so angry all the time, and at everyone. She lashes out at her boyfriend, her friends, her grandmother (who is a bit of a b to be honest) and it’s sometimes hard to read, or at least it becomes exhausting to read. I definitely understand some of her anger, but I really wanted to shake her a bit and make her calm down, and just listen to people.
One of the best things about this book was Mari’s friendship group. She has three best friends and the four of them really were there for each other and it was a great example of female friendship. I did find some of their conversations a bit troubling in terms of Heavenly seemingly having a much older boyfriend, and at one point Mari plays a trick on Teri’s brother and posts half-naked photos of men on his Facebook page and likes them on his behalf to make it seem like he is gay as if this is a terrible thing.
The author is a paediatric cardiologist so she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to Angelo’s condition. It was well-detailed in a way that made it easier for the reader and Mari to figure out what was happening. I didn’t like some of Mari’s opinions on a lot of the nurses (she seemed okay with the male doctors but not the female doctors or the nurses bar one that Dr Love - a male doctor - introduced her to). Some of the doctors and nurses also appeared extremely gruff and rude to Mari and Bertie which I found odd, and would hope would not happen if this was a real life situation.I also found Amelia’s death completely unnecessary
I received a free copy of this book from Amulet Books (Abrams&Chronicle) in exchange for an honest review.
Mari Pujols is fifteen and pregnant but she can’t wait to meet her child until she finds out he only has half a heart. Now Mari is facing the toughest choice she can make as a mother - continue with her pregnancy and risk losing her baby at the end of it, or have a termination.
This should have been a very emotional, impactful story and while parts of it definitely were, I think other parts let it down a bit.
Mari is a tough cookie, to sum it all up in one. She is a fighter because she’s had to be and she hasn’t had it easy in life with parents that abandoned her and an abuela who didn’t treat her as well as she should have. And now her baby is sick on top of it all. But she’s just so angry all the time, and at everyone. She lashes out at her boyfriend, her friends, her grandmother (who is a bit of a b to be honest) and it’s sometimes hard to read, or at least it becomes exhausting to read. I definitely understand some of her anger, but I really wanted to shake her a bit and make her calm down, and just listen to people.
One of the best things about this book was Mari’s friendship group. She has three best friends and the four of them really were there for each other and it was a great example of female friendship. I did find some of their conversations a bit troubling in terms of Heavenly seemingly having a much older boyfriend, and at one point Mari plays a trick on Teri’s brother and posts half-naked photos of men on his Facebook page and likes them on his behalf to make it seem like he is gay as if this is a terrible thing.
The author is a paediatric cardiologist so she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to Angelo’s condition. It was well-detailed in a way that made it easier for the reader and Mari to figure out what was happening. I didn’t like some of Mari’s opinions on a lot of the nurses (she seemed okay with the male doctors but not the female doctors or the nurses bar one that Dr Love - a male doctor - introduced her to). Some of the doctors and nurses also appeared extremely gruff and rude to Mari and Bertie which I found odd, and would hope would not happen if this was a real life situation.