First Day Of My Life: An incredible story of secrets, lies, friendships and love.
First Day of My Life tells the story of 3 teenagers whose lives are very much intertwined on a day in their lives where something terrible happens: a baby goes missing.
Proof copy sent from the publishers, David Fickling Books.
We meet Frankie, Jojo and Ram. Three teenagers who are celebrating the summer holidays. They’ve finished their GCSEs. The day the book starts on is actually GCSE results day. A baby goes missing. When Jojo doesn’t turn up, Frankie starts thinking the very worst. (yep, you’ve got it… she thinks her best friend has stolen the missing baby!) What follows is Frankie’s quest to find the truth, a missing baby and her best friend. There’s an awful lot of emotion and familiar faces that join the story to help her!
The first thing I have to say is that this book is MAGNIFICENT. It’s clever. It’s heartbreaking. It’s hard to read. It’s real. It’s scary. It’s being a teenager. It’s dealing with your emotions. It’s questionable parenting and some decisions which made me SO ANGRY. It’s having secrets and telling lies. It’s needing to tell more lies to cover up the lies you told. It’s dealing with some tough things. It’s knowing who to turn to when you need help most. It’s misleading. It’s unpredictable. It’s so many emotions rolled into one incredible book.
It’s just a really great story with incredible characters.
For anyone who is new to Lisa Williamson books, where have you been? Lisa writes in such an incredible way and her stories always punch me in the gut. I swear to you, there’s not a Lisa Williamson book I’ve not read that I haven’t cried at! Lisa does realistic contemporary novels brilliantly well and I can’t wait to read more!
The Art of Being Normal review
This book is written in a split perspective and I really loved it. I loved learning about how the lives of the friends were interlaced. I loved learning about the characters through each other and through their own narratives. It was really interesting being part of secrets when the other people in the story didn’t know.
There’s some decision making by adults in this book that MADE ME SO ANGRY. I can’t really share what they are because spoilers, but just know that some of the adults in this book made me so cross. I think what makes it worse is that there is some element of realism to the decisions that the adults make.
One of the messages I got from this book was that even when we love people, even when we think we’re looking out for the people we love, we can hurt them. Even when we don’t think we are.
This book is full of ALL OF THE EMOTIONS. There’s love, hope, happiness, relief, love, loss, heartbreak, betrayal, sadness, reunions.
There’s loads of moments in this book of quiet, honest love and some of love in sheer desperation. The girls love each other dearly. They want the best for each other, but when things start going a bit wrong, they don’t give up on each other. They show that it’s love and kindness that matters most.
I loved that this book celebrated diverse family situations. Each of the 3 main characters has a different family dynamic, and while that may not seem like something worth celebrating, it totally is. It’s so important that we show people that their family matters. That there’s no one way for a family to be.
A massive shout out here to the scene between Ram and the policeman (I can’t give any more context here because spoilers hah). It was a gentle and tough and heartbreaking scene to read. It completely broke me. I cried so so hard at that scene. There’s so much emotion in that scene on the page that it translated to many tears for me!
My Goodreads review:
| This book is all kinds of magnificent. It’s heartbreaking and tough and hard to read. It’s revelations and secrets. It’s love in so many forms. It’s doing what’s right for you even when you know it’s going to hurt the people you love. It’s hard hitting and raw at times. I love how intertwined the 3 characters are and how their stories unfolded. The 3 perspectives worked so well. The epilogue made my heart so happy. Massive shout out to the scene between Ram and the policeman: it broke my heart. Bloody bravo! |
And that’s it!
A MASSIVE MASSIVE thank you to the publishers David Fickling Books for sending me a proof copy of this incredible book. I devoured it in a matter of hours.
Have you read any Lisa Williamson books?
Are you excited for this one?
What’s your take on split-perspective books?
Chat to me! I’d love to know your thoughts!
S x
alittlebutalot 