Thank you netgalley for this E-Arc

This was such an entertaining read with moments that had me laughing. Seeing the complexities within the friendships and betrayal were wrote beautifully and truly had me hating Helen the majority of the time. The twists were surprising and I found myself feeling so shocked. Such a heartfelt and enjoyable read.

Young Fools

Starting off strong- the format of this book is absolutely terrible. It’s dual perspective, kind-of. Except not. It’s primarily Helen’s perspective, except then it randomly switches to Cherry’s near the end of the book, then goes back and forth randomly without much rhyme or reason. Definitely not back and forth with each chapter.

It’s also broken down into ten year blocks of time- 1995, 2005, 2015, and a few pages in 2025. This could be a big formatting focus, but it took me until the third “block” to click that there wasn’t a random jump of time. The pacing just didnt feel natural.

Finally, without spoiling it too much, the first half of the book is later revealed as actually being a book itself. But this doesn’t flow well either.

The writing in the first part, perhaps because it’s a book inside a book, was very elementary. Frequently I caught myself asking how a book about writing and how to become a good author was so poorly written. The character development was incredibly slow. Everyone was described at the surface level.

The little plot twist at the end was the only good part. It was the hero arc we needed to save us from such a terrible story line.

CAWPILE score: 31
2/5 stars

C 4/10
A 5/10
W 3/10
P 5/10
I 5/10
L 5/10
E 4/10
Total: 31/70

DNF.
Couldn't get into the story. The writing is too dense unnecessarily. The blurb sounded so cool and promising but the execution was so inefficiently done.

Helen Hicks is one of the mfc. The book starts off with readers learning more about Helen. Her small town, where she grew up in thought her whole family was weird, and she was labelled an outcast. Her bad attitude didn't help. She tried to think of herself as s character in a book, but nothing she did seemed to fix the loneliness she felt. Helen decides to sign up for a contest where the winner wins the Gelding Fellowship. Helen really, really wants to win because she wants her parents to be proud of her and see that she can be a successful writer.

Helen soon meets Cherry after she pointed out how Helen's hair dye stained the back of her shirt (I laughed so hard picturing this.) Helen believes that Cherry could be a literary genius after she spoke out in class. From there, their friendship blooms as they write notes back and forth to each other in class. As the story continues, Helen begins to get praised for her writing, even being told that one of her pieces was the most promising. Things happen that create a wedge between the two girls, and soon they start having a feud that lasts YEARS. Towards the end of the book, it just reminded me of how fast time flies and how much you can miss in someone else's life when you let something simmer negatively in your friendship.

This book was one that I enjoyed. Female friendships are one of my favourite types of fiction books to read about. I loved seeing each of the characters' growth in this book. 3rd person is not always my favourite writing style to read about, but it quickly grew on me in this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union for the opportunity to read Young Fools by Liza Palmer. I loved his book. Liza Palmer deftly and with great sensitivity peels back layers of a friendship to get to the very tender heart. How many of us have pushed back against thoughts and feelings about best friends because they felt disloyal - and because we were unable to face the root of those feelings? Bravo for Liza Palmer, Helen, and Cherry.