Book review: Choose Me

Choose Me- Kay Langdale

Standing in WHSmith's at Reading Station, looking at the bookshelves and trying to find a book that looked like my kind of thing, an orange spine jumped out at me. It had Choose Me written along it. If that's not an order, then what is? Reading the blurb, I could tell it was my sort of thing: A novel about a 9 year old boy who is trying to find an adoptive family after his mum dies from heroin abuse. Far from being depressing, though, it's a heartwarming and sometimes funny story.

Billy is an adorable boy and his best friend Joey is such a character. I was a little put out by the mature conversations they had. I work with 9 year old children and they certainly don't formulate sentences the way they were written in this! It was a nice touch that they kept repeating the use of "properly", though. 

I was rooting for Billy throughout the whole story. He's such an endearing character: Very wise and perceptive, although he battles with his previous life and his mother's death and this causes him to be an introverted and nervous child. Each of the three prospective families are so wrong for Billy that I was willing him to speak up and share his fears. 

I really grew to care for Billy and became angry at the potential parents who were so ignorant of his feelings: How dare Zoe Marshall try to force him to relive his traumatic life? Why can't Malcolm Bridges see that Billy will never be like him? 

About a third of the way through, it became pretty clear how the story was going to end. This didn't bother me though as I was desperate for it to end the way it did. It was such a happy, wonderful ending that I cried on the train behind a group of rowdy teenage boys!

A lovely novel- Sometimes heartbreaking, often funny and ultimately joyous.