Book Club: Divine Clementine by Hayley S Kirk

The April Book Club read was Divine Clementine by Hayley S Kirk

Divine Clementine is a story about a teenage girl Clementine whose eccentric Aunt dies suddenly and how Clementine and her family deals with the death, loss and grief.

Clementine is your typical teenager until her Aunt Stella who she idolises and looks up to dies in an accident. The story then uncovers the truth about the fun loving free spirited Aunt that Clementine thought she knew to the depressed anxious unstable person the rest of the family knew her to be. Clementine was unaware how much her Aunt Stella battled with anxiety and the black cloud of depression. All this is discovered when Clementine reads her Aunt Stella's diary and soon realises that everything she thought she knew about her was a lie.

You are taken on the lows of teenage angst dealing with loss and death - from the sullen silent treatments to drunken debacles until Clementine is sent off to a country town and finally accepts that she needs to deal with her loss.

 

This book didn't keep me engaged all the way through. I was actually a bit frustrated with Clementine and how mean she was towards her family and the way she was carrying on towards everyone even her friends. I wonder if I was really that much of a brat to my family when I was 16 .... and the answer is probably yes but how quickly we forget what it's like to be a teenager.

I would recommend this book as young adult fiction and to anyone wanting an insight into how teenagers deal with grief after the death or loss of someone they love.

 

I give this book 3 stars
 

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch re-runs of Neighbours than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd pass up a pack of tim tams for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

 

[Image via Random House]