Hope was Here by Joan

The story was a very good one. Throughout this book they made a play on the word “hope”. It was used both as the characters name and as the noun. I thought it was very clever the way the author did that and it definitely added to the story for me. I always enjoy when books make me laugh and this one did at times. There were a few scenes that were very humorous which I think is very important in a book. Hope was Here addressed many different things all in one book as well. It illustrated pain and loneliness, love, determination, hate, failure, success, death, and many other things that are aspects of every ones life at some point or another. I really appreciated how the author was able to create a fun to read story that talked about all of these different things and was able to show it in a way that was understandable and personal, but also entertaining. One thing that was a little bit strange to me was that Hope, age 15, was dating a boy that was 18 or 19. It was not weird in the book, but when I think about it, that is a very big age difference. That really was the only thing in the book that seamed out of place however. One thing about the writing that I thought was unique but that I enjoyed was that when Hope was thinking, the author would write parts of her thoughts in fragmented sentences. He would write a short passing thought, but only use a few words to say it, as one would actually think something like that. To me it made Hope much more personal and helped me to see her as a person instead of a character in a book.