Delacorte Press How to Make Friends with the Dark

Beautiful book, I wonder why I hadn't heard of it before. Wonderful read.

La edición es hermosa, llegó muy bien.

Liked the story but it didn’t give me the feels quite as much as I wanted it toDefinitely won’t reread it - once is alright but nothing knocked me off my feet

Amazing book well written and touching anyone who has lost someone especially a parent will appreciate this book.

Tiger Tolliver is a fairly typical, sixteen year old girl, trying to find her way in the world. She's looking forward to her first school dance, enjoying her first kiss with her first crush, and wishing her mother would finally give her some autonomy. And it's those wishes that drive Tiger to attack her mother when she finds out she's purchased her a matronly dress for the dress. It's those wishes that motivate Tiger to tell her mom to 'just leave her alone!' And it's those wishes, that make that the last encounter Tiger will ever have with her mother.When June Tolliver dies unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm, no one is more shocked or devastated than her only daughter. Tiger has no one else in the world. She has no idea who her father is and her mother was an only child whose parents died when she was a young woman. Alone and sixteen, Tiger thrown into the foster system where she learns that not many people care about her woes and many of whom have even worse troubles of their own.As Tiger tries to navigate her new life without her mother, she faces more and more unexpected challenges that will test her sense of self, make her question who her mother really was, and will upend any semblance of a life she had.This was an extremely emotional read. Tiger's grief is palpable and the heartbreak leaps off the pages. Just when the sadness felt overwhelming, levity and hope were injected into the story, adding twists I didn't expect. Though it is a young adult novel, the content and heaviness made it a slower read for me. All in all, I found this to be a truly beautiful story about family, love, loss, grief, and coping with the devastation of losing your mother.

This was a tough read to get through. Not because of bad writing, the writing was well done, but because of my own issues, it hit home pretty deeply and I found myself having to stop to gather myself before I could continue.I really felt for Tiger as well as the other characters, especially for Thaddeus. You really don't know what people are going through and you can only deal with things the best you know how.I think sometimes the only way to survive is "Making friends with the dark".This book doesn't just deal with loss and grief, it also touches on abandonment, abuse, addiction and making some crappy choices. Sometimes the bad things that happen to you in life affect the choices you make. It's realism.I'm glad the author didn't just have Tiger grieving for a day or two then making everything honkydory after that, because life doesn't work that way and grieving is a long process. The pain never goes away, you learn to live with it. Some days being harder than others. Some days you're okay and other days it can hit you like a ton of bricks. So I'm glad the author gave realism to loss and grief.There was something that tugged my heart towards the end when there's talk of loved ones visiting in dreams, it made me cry yet gave me a warm feeling because I saw loved ones in my dreams that felt so real and peaceful and it, I don't know how to explain it, it just tugged my heart.