The Names they Gave Us by Emery Lord

Rating: 4.5/5

Category: Young Adult Contemporary Fiction

Started: 30th May, 2017

Finished: 04th June, 2017

Pages: 390

Copy: Australian ARC, Paperback

Publication Date: May 16th, 2017

Publisher: Bloomsbury
http://www.bloomsbury.com/au/

RRP (AU): $17.99
Ebook Available: Yes

Recommended ages: 14+


Overall Comment: Beautiful cover, Beautiful book. 

Review: Another one to add to the growing list of amazing books written by the wonderful Emery Lord. 'The Names they Gave Us' is an incredibly emotional, hilarious, romantic and eye-opening book that truly hits home within the hearts and minds of all readers. From the characters to the plot-line, this book never leaves room for doubt, without doubt making it one of the best reads of the year for myself and many others (I'm sure of it!). 

I can first of all state that the characters within this book and extremely lovable and realistic and I think this is what makes it such a life-related and eye-opening piece. The main characters in this story are those of Lucy, Jones, Lucy's parents and a few other camp councilors. Each character has been written as if they had an individual book and this is what is truly beautiful about the novel. Lucy herself is literally one of my favorite characters ever. She isn't weak, yet she isn't at her strongest and this makes her initially like any person you see walking past you in the open. What I truly love is that fact that she develops so well. She goes from being a girl with little knowledge of the world to a sane person and this comes primarily through the help of several people throughout the novel and within the face of bad. (I don't want to spoil!) Jones and the other Councillors are people that you can tell would be realistic in a real life situation and this just compliments the story better. 

The issues, now that is something I really love about this! I don't mean what I didn't enjoy about this novel, no, not those kind of issues and to be honest, I cannot think of any. But rather the issues that relate the book to our modern society. Lucy is situated in a perfect life-style, until her mothers cancer comes back in a form more aggressive that before. This shatters her because it hits when hopes and feelings of happiness were high. Being from an extremely religious family, she has not experienced life in a somewhat 'neutral' form. So when she is sent to a camp as a councilor for troubled children and teenagers, she fears at what she is exposed to. This meaning that she is exposed to a variety of social issues that plague the modern society. These include abuse of both forms, drug issues, teenage pregnancy, parent and sibling loss, anger issues, same-sex relationships and transgender people. The way these issues were approached was done respectfully well and I believe that both reader and Lucy learn throughout the book. We watch in progress over the summer, Lucy and her relationship with her mother and students and this was done beautifully. This resulted in many emotional moments where one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry (Believe me, I cried). Being a book of progression and growth, one truly feels as though they are growing with the book both mentally and emotionally. 

All I can truly say about the plot line is that it is both empowering and heartbreaking. I loved it so much! So, there we have it! A review for this brilliant book! I definitely recommend as it is a very eye opening piece to issues that teenagers, children and adults alike can relate too. I loved every bit and I hope you will too!

A huge thank you goes to Bloomsbury, Australia for sending me this and for in general, supporting my blog. It is hard to blog and review on time, especially when you are in grade 11 doing courses designed to be stressful and busy and to prepared you for life and that dreadful O.P test (Australians, you know what I'm talking about) So thank you Bloomsbury for sticking around, I really truly appreciate it! 

From your Musketeer,
Emmaleah XxXx 
All for one and one for all!