Tag Archives: social anxiety

Review: Joined at the Joints Marissa Eller

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Joined at the Joints by Marissa Eller

Joined at the Joints
Marissa Eller
Holiday House
Published July 2, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Joined at the Joints

When baking-obsessed Ivy meets a super-hot boy who shares her rare diagnosis, sparks fly outside of the kitchen for the first time in her life!

Chronically ill seventeen-year-old Ivy has stayed in watching the Food Network all summer—pies are better than people, and they don’t trigger her social anxiety. So when her (also) chronically ill mom and sister cook up a plan to get Ivy out of the house and into a support group, Ivy doesn’t expect to say more than a few words.

And she certainly doesn’t expect Grant. Grant is CUTE: class-clown cute, perfectly-messy-hair cute, will-always-text-you-back cute. There’s an instant connection between them. He has the same diagnosis as her–juvenille rheumatoid arthritis–and he actually understands Ivy’s world.

But just because he understands Ivy’s pain doesn’t mean he can take it away. And she wishes he could—because it’s getting worse. Ivy has always tried her best to appear pain-free, but between treatment plans, symptom management, and struggling with medical self-advocacy, being sick feels more and more difficult. Will Ivy’s delicious new romance pan out? Can she keep up the façade, for him and for the world… or should she be brave and let it go?

Marissa Eller serves up a sweet, satisfying romcom that tackles the realities of chronic illness—and coming-of-age milestones from friend breakups to first kisses—with wry humor, tons of heart, and a huge helping of honesty. Nuanced, poignant, and deeply enjoyable, readers will fall for Eller’s voice in this compelling debut that offers all the right ingredients.

My Review

This is such a sweet book. I loved that because both characters understand rheumatoid arthritis, there’s not a lot of one character educating the other. Both Ivy and Grant have some similarities and differences in their experiences, and they share enough common ground to offer support to one another when it’s needed.

Ivy is a great character. I love stories about baking or cooking, so the scenes in which she prepares food were great. When a character’s love language is food, I find it easy to connect with them. I also liked her relationship with her sister, Caroline. They look out for one another but give each other space and autonomy, too. They have a great balance. The descriptions of their younger brother, Ethan, made me laugh, too. He felt like such an energetic character, even when he was just in the periphery of a scene.

The relationship between Grant and Ivy is great, too. They like each other from the start, but it didn’t feel too insta-love-y to me. Maybe because Ivy is so shy and takes so long to admit that she likes him and that he seems to like her, too. I liked the progression of the relationship and how they leaned on one another.

In terms of a summer romance, Joined at the Joints hits all the right notes. It’s sweet, thoughtful, and full of fun. Definitely a good one for a weekend read.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Ivy and Grant have juvenile idiopathic arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis). Ivy also has social anxiety. Ivy’s sister, Caroline, has celiac disease. Her mom has lupus. Caroline and Ivy join a support group for teens with chronic illnesses.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
F-bombs used infrequently. Strong profanity used somewhat infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A baseball strikes a character, leaving an ugly bruise. Ivy experiences growing pain in her joints that becomes increasingly debilitating. Some references to ableist comments.

Drug Content
Just the drugs prescribed by Ivy’s doctor.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Never Said by Carol Lynch Williams

Book Review and Content, Clean Fiction, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , ,

Never Said
Carol Lynch Williams
Zondervan

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

In the midst of her devastation over a break-up, Sarah realizes something isn’t right with her twin. Annie has been withdrawing from the family for some time, but her behavior seems to be escalating. She chops off her hair, gains weight, and gives up the beauty pageants she once lived for. Though shy and socially anxious Sarah has always been jealous of the way her parents favor Annie, she begins to worry about her sister. Sarah pushes toward her sister, and finds that in return, Annie reluctantly opens up to her.

The writing style was the first thing that captured me in this story. The voice is strong, conveying Sarah’s inner agony and Annie’s mounting frustration with aching clarity. There was one moment at the beginning where I felt like the story was a bit repetitive in describing Sarah’s reaction to her family’s interactions. Other than that, things moved forward at a great pace, and I tore through the story in one sitting of just a few hours.

Annie’s weight gain dramatically changes the way the other students interact with her. While Annie feels that her new look is a shield against unwanted male attention, she also endures some hateful behavior from other kids. The exploration of body image and how weight affects the way others perceive us is important. Williams doesn’t shy away from the sad reality there. Annie eventually decides to return to her old look, and while I get it, I found myself wishing somehow that there had been a bigger pause, a bigger moment to say that it really doesn’t/shouldn’t matter what her weight is. Returning to her slimmer figure doesn’t increase her actual value, though it functioned as an indicator of Annie’s rising sense of her own value – she’d been hiding behind those extra pounds and shedding them would be like facing an enemy head-on. It showed real courage.

The resolution was a bit quick. All the way through the story Annie hints that she has a secret. It smells like sexual abuse, but we don’t find out what it is until the big reveal maybe three-quarters of the way through the story. Once this comes out, Sarah takes some action to protect her sister. Following this, we get kind of a summary of how everyone responded and what happened after that (visit spoiler section if you want to know more.) I felt like some of that was a bit rushed and didn’t allow me a chance to soak in the characters’ emotions in what was a really big moment.

I loved watching the sisters’ relationship develop. As a girl with two sisters, one close enough in age that we were often mistaken for twins, the tug-of-war Annie and Sarah experienced in terms of establishing their own identities and finding ways to connect despite their differences and pressure from parents or friends felt extremely real.

As I read, I found myself looking for the spiritual tie-in. Though this is a Zondervan book, there was not really any link that I could see to pursuing a Christian faith or even searching out questions about whether God is real or anything like that. I found it a bit puzzling, to be honest.

Language Content
None.

Sexual Content
Sarah recalls time spent with her boyfriend snuggling in his bed (clothed), kissing, and sneaking in/out of each other’s rooms. (see below for additional content which includes spoilers.)

Spiritual Content
None.

Shocked? Me too. Despite the fact that Zondervan is a Christian publisher… I can’t remember faith really playing any sort of role whatsoever in the story.

Violence
None.

Drug Content
None.

SPOILER (select the text below to read…)
Sexual content continued… Annie reveals that she’s no longer a virgin and that she’s had sex with a married man, even after she told him no. It’s a quick conversation and there’s not a lot of follow-up information.

While I appreciate that we weren’t dragged through the gory details of Annie’s relationship, I kind of felt like the resolution of this information, which the whole story has been building up to, was too quick and too many things were left unsaid. We have enough infer that it’s a bad relationship from the brief information Annie reveals, and there’s a brief wrap-up letting us know that this guy isn’t going to get off scot-free. I just felt like it needed to be a bigger moment. I wanted to really feel Annie’s parents realize what’s been happening and see them respond to her with all the shock, horror, and protection, rather than just have Sarah tell us that was so.