Review: Beneath The Sugar Sky or a book that should be read by everyone!

Hello people! How are you? And how are your reading going? Tomorrow would be my day off work and I am really looking forward to it. I have a ton of house chores to do, but I am hoping to find at least a couple of hours to just read, read and read! It sounds like a plan! Anyway, today I am here with a review for a book that is not an ARC, as I promised in the past weekly recap, yay!

Title: Beneath The Sugar Sky
Series: Wayward Children #3
Author: Seanan McGuire
Page Count: 174

When Rini lands with a literal splash in the pond behind Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, the last thing she expects to find is that her mother, Sumi, died years before Rini was even conceived. But Rini can’t let Reality get in the way of her quest – not when she has an entire world to save! (Much more common than one would suppose.)
If she can’t find a way to restore her mother, Rini will have more than a world to save: she will never have been born in the first place. And in a world without magic, she doesn’t have long before Reality notices her existence and washes her away. Good thing the student body is well-acquainted with quests…
A tale of friendship, baking, and derring-do.

Warning: May contain nuts.

I know that lately, I talk about mixed feelings in my reviews, and it’s quickly becoming a refrain, but I think it’s just that kind of period. And it’s not like I didn’t enjoy my reading, not at all, but… Yeah, mixed feeling. But this time I don’t have mixed feelings only toward the book, oh no, I go to the next level and I have them towards this review, too! Ah, the happy and uncomplicated life of a bookworm, I am not right?

Let’s begin with the review and why I was not so into the idea of writing it. The biggest problem is about the fact that this is the third book in a series and I had not reviewed the previous ones. So… Does it really make sense for me to write a review of the third book in a series? To be honest is a pretty simple question, almost stupid. I mean you can both answer yes or not, but you just decide and go on with your life, right? Wrong! I changed my mind about a million times because on one hand, it seems sort of wrong, or at least weird, to do it (and it felt a little like I was wronging to the other books), but on the other hand, I really want to share something about this book. So here we are!
And the thing is, that I really had to write about this book because even if I didn’t love it (gasp!) I think that this book deserves to be read by all of us. And not for it, it’s not about how good or bad this book is, but for us. I really think that this book must be read. Because every one of us could see something of ourselves in there, and it’s also a book that, in its own ways, is heartwarming and comforting.

But let’s try to say something more about it! This is, so far, the less favorite of this series (to me, obviously) and I don’t know what went wrong. The problem is that I wasn’t so hooked up or so invested in it. It has a good plot, it has amazing characters, the worlds in there are the most imaginative and fantastic and yet it wasn’t enough to make me fall in love. Yeah, it seems I can be impossible sometimes!
And yet I am here telling you to go and read this book! And the main reason is Cora. She struggled all her life because other people think her fat. She struggled with the preconceptions the others have on her, she felt shaped and constricted by them, and yet she refuses to give up. She refuses to be what the others think she should be, she refuses to be shaped by them.
And yes, she suffered (and is suffering) because she was bullied and that left scars, but she is stronger, she is a fighter and she is an amazing person. And it’s amazing her way to just be herself and yet have a clear view on how the others see her. She shows us how important it is to be true to ourselves, to be we the one who decides what and how we are, but she shows us even us much cruel or stupid we can be.

And even if she wanted to, she never wanted to. If the fat person was the first one to say “hey, I am tired”, or “hey, I am hungry” or “hey, can we sit down” it was always because they were fat and not because they were human being with a flesh body that sometimes had needs.

I could have quoted a lot from this book, but this one is my favorite because it’s short, it’s right to the point and it’s so damn true. Cora is a teen who is struggling with a lot, and she gifts us with such a precise analysis of human nature and society! And I really feel like she is speaking for every one of us.
Maybe our problem was/is being fat, or being tallest then your friends, or shorter, or too thin, or with too many freckles. Or maybe you dressed with too much black, or with too many colors. Or maybe the problem was that when all your friends were talking about girls all you wanted to speak about was boys. Or vice-versa. All your friends were thinking about boys but you no. You liked girls. And so on, so on. And hence you were labeled as “wrong” and this labeled kept you company for a very long time.
And maybe now that label is just a piece of your past, or maybe it is still with you, a shadow for every thought or deed that you have or do. So, if you ever felt wrong, if you ever felt out of place, if you found yourself, at least a little bit, in what I have written here well, you just have to read this book.

And we have more. Yes, this was the main reason for me to speak about this book, and yes, I haven’t loved this one as much as the previous ones, but the book has a lot in it. We have some great characters, Cora obviously, but Kade and Christopher are so sweet too, and fun, and fantastic. And we get to see Nancy’s world, even if for a short time (and I have to say that I was dying to see it!!) ad then we have the world in which the main part of the story takes part. And it’s so luscious, vibrant and alive! So, yep, we have a lot, even if this one is a very short and quick book.

Make yourself a favor and go and read this book!
Have you read this book? Or this series? Let me know!!! And have you had the same kind of problems that I had writing this review? Or I am the only one who tortures herself so much?

Happy reading!
S.