Review: Catch the Sun by Jennifer Hartmann
Note: An advance reader copy (ARC) was provided by Bloom Books via Valentine PR.
"You're Ella and I'm Max. Why can't that be enough?"
Catch the Sun isn't my first Jennifer Hartmann read, but it is the first that is young adult (YA), although due to the some of the themes and potential triggers, I would consider this more mature YA than anything. This is the story of Ella Sunbury, a girl who meets fellow seven-year-old Max Manning and become each other's best friend. Then without warning, she moves away, no longer to live with her father but with her mother and older brother instead. A decade later, Ella returns to the community of Juniper Falls in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, but from the get-go, it's clear that her senior year in high school will be nothing like that idyllic year when life was all about having fun with her best friend by her side. Now, that former best friend can barely stand to look at her, what more breathe the same air she does. But Ella has it all wrong because seeing her again has Max hoping to get to know this version of the girl he never forgot. Their connection may have survived ten years apart, but what will be left of their budding romance when the unthinkable happens? Could catching the elusive sun leave nothing more than ashes?
Goodness but how heartrending this novel was! Yes, there was a coming of age story and romance, but it was also about family and what you were willing to do for them. The phrase "my brother's keeper" popped in my head a few times while I was reading this book, and if you've perused this Jennifer Hartmann-penned tale, then you'll understand why. My heart broke for both Ella and Max, and by the end, even with the resolution of sorts, that heart had only barely been stitched back together. I honestly have no clue what I would have done if I were in either of their shoes. After all, they were teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. I'm the age that I'm at and I found myself at a loss when they were faced with one absolutely devastating multi-layered tragedy. There was a maturity to Ella and Max, but I'm pretty sure that was a by-product of the lives that they were living because what other choice did they have but to grow up far more quickly than their peers? I will say, though, that they also had quite a few pillars of support around them, for which I'm appreciative. The character development was stellar, particularly in the case of Ella. She was Jonah's Piglet; then she was Max's Sunny; and by the book's end, she was Ella--a survivor of a past with an unfortunate series of gut-wrenching circumstances who is thriving in her present and hopeful for her future. And in the middle of it all was a boy who became a man; while she, in turn, was the center of his life.
Catch the Sun was a novel I didn't see coming, and for that, I'm glad--even if my heart is still healing from everything Ella and Max experienced. It's a five-plus-starred must-read. (I would make a list of reasons why this needs to be on everyone's to-be-read list, but my review is already overly wrong. So let me end this with three words: Just. Read. It.)
(P.S. I'm an Eeyore, too, but I still believe in happily-ever-afters.)
Release Date: 16 July 2024
Date Read: 03 July 2024
Learn more about Jennifer Hartmann.
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