How to Make Friends with the Dark

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This story hauls you into its heart to live the pain in all its careening, messy, and miraculous glory. I realize every person experiences grief differently, but Tiger's felt more than a little over-the-top. Maybe some day it could be a reality for someone you know, a friend, a family memeber or even yourself.

She was very abrasive and I felt strange because I had to remind myself that I should feel bad for her.

We meet Tiger Tolliver at her most broken--at her darkest moment--and yet, somehow, How To Make Friends With the Dark teaches us how to let the light in. But for my money on a book on grief, I’d go with Mick Harte Was Here (a middle grade but still really good), or Stealing Kevin’s Heart. When she inadvertently saves the life of Prince Kai, she becomes embroiled in the Purging Trials, a competition to commemorate the sickness that killed most of the kingdom’s Ordinaries. You spend a lot of time stuck in Tiger's mind and her thoughts, for the first part of the book, can be quite cyclical and repetitive and a bit like "get on with it.

Tiger's mother may be overprotective, but it has always been Tiger and her mother against the world. When it would have been easy for Tiger to push Cake away or for Cake to disappear when things get hard and Tiger's emotions are messy, their friendship weathers the storm.Sometimes things were said that didn't feel like something any living, breathing human being would say, instead of a book character.