The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern
RATING: 3 Stars
GENRE: YA/Middle Grade Realistic
Eleven years old. The beginning of everything!
For Maggie Mayfield, turning eleven means she's one year closer to college. One year closer to voting. And one year closer to getting a tattoo. It's time for her to pull herself up by her bootstraps (the family motto) and think about more than after school snacks and why her older sisters are too hot for their own good. Because something mysterious is going on with her cool dude Dad, whose legs have permanently fallen asleep, and Maggie is going to find out exactly what the problem is and fix it. After all, nothing's impossible when you're future president of the United States of America, fifth grade science fair champion, and a shareholder in Coca-Cola, right?
MY THOUGHTS:
Another great contribution to the growing Sick Lit genre, this time from a younger character's perspective; Maggie who is having a bit of a rough year trying to cope with her Dad's deteriorating MS.
Maggie is a great character - she is funny, intelligent and just all around loveable. Some of my favoutite characters are child geniuses and I always think they have fantastic POVs to read about and Maggie was no exception. Maggie's dream is to become President one day, giving her a sense of maturity and pride which I think adds to the reading experience. One things that I didn't enjoy though was her naivety. I think this may just be a pet hate of mine as I have found this in a lot of books and I know it is a Middle Grade/YA. However, I know that if your parent had been suffering from an illness for a long time, the kids tend to know about it in order to understand and cope but this wasn't the case for Maggie.
The family dynamics built in this book again were good. Maggie lives with her two older sisters, her dad and her mum but recently her mum has been working a lot more to get some more money. The dynamics were realistic and interesting. It also allowed you to see the process of grievance and coping from all different angles to see how different people cope differently.
The topic of MS was handled very delicately and a good way of explaining it to a younger audience. Though I would say that as I am a sucker for a 'sick lit' book (I just love the emotions)! However, the reason I am giving this book only 3 starts even though I loved the characters was because of the plot. The themes were great but looking back on it, nothing happened. It was literally a story of her normal daily life with a Dad who has MS. No plot twists, no major changes; just focusing on her getting to grips with her Dad's condition. This may be what some people like but for me, I like to have a few twists and turns to keep the pace fast.
A book suited to the younger audience with great ways of explaining MS but mainly a character based book. Perfect for fans of Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan!
*I RECEIVED A COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM CHRONICLE BOOKS FOR REVIEW BUT IT HAS IN NO WAY AFFECTED MY OPINIONS.*
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