Life, Loss and Puffins
Catherine Ryan Hyde
272 pages
Lake Union Publishing
Published on May 14th, 2024
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Life, Loss and Puffins is the latest heartwarming standalone from one of my favourite authors: time after time, she comes up with unique characters and original plots that celebrate the power of friendship and the beauty of non-traditional families. This one is about Ru, a 13 year old child prodigy who is faced with having to live with her awful aunt when her solo mother dies, so runs away with her new best friend Gabriel for the adventure of a lifetime.
Like Ru, I have a fascination with seeing the Aurora Borealis with the naked eye – down here at the bottom of the world in New Zealand, we do get fairly frequent Aurora Australis sightings, but it’s generally only visible through a camera. Sadly I missed the recent one due to cloud cover where we live. The main suspense element of the book – would Ru realise her dream and get to the Arctic to see it? – wasn’t really in any doubt, but I didn’t expect what happened afterwards – and I did appreciate the ending (I was dreading them becoming a couple which would’ve negated the whole message of the book – I should’ve trusted CRH!)
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