Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This is a well written book and Cariad is someone you just wanted to hug and tell her it's going to be OK. The topic itself could ruffle a few feathers, but it does shed light on some of the issues of LGBT and religion. I'd recommend.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

A thoughtful read. Really makes you think. It was sad, happy and everything in between. About finding your way home to you.

Religion, fitting in, sexuality, friendship, family —this book touches up all of these and others. We are taken on this journey through the eyes of the protagonist, 16-year-old Cariad, who’s been shunted from foster home to foster home all her life. When she’s placed with Dawn and Jackie in the small Northern Irish town, she is already a hardened cynic, breaker of rules, flouter of expectations. Yet, despite herself, Cari carves out her place in this little world and learns to hope again.

A lovely, unusual coming-of-age novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy.

This is a story of finding yourself and living your truth in a world that wants you to be something different. A story of finding home.

Cari is a sixteen-year-old girl who has spent her life moving from foster home to foster home. Now she's living with Dawn and Jackie in Northern Ireland and torn between being herself, the fun-loving teen who likes to drink and smoke and have a good time. Unfortunately for her, this is not what they want. She goes to a church group to please them, but she doesn't agree with the things being said.

This story is about friendship and LGBT issues and is superbly written. Cari is a strong character and there are times when I laughed and times when I cried reading this book. It deals with tragedy, with pressure to conform and to be what you're not. It's an eye-opener at time to the prejudice that many gay teens face from the church and it is written really well.

Cari has amazing friends and we see through her and her struggle for truth just how cruel the world can be. It's an excellent young adult book and one I am glad to have read.

An amazing read, thought provoking, emotional and addictive. Once I picked this up I really didn’t want to put it down at all. I loved the representation and church discussion, it was very well done and not a direction I thought the book was going to take, but it was so well done. Wonderfully written and relatable and engaging characters that you truly care for, I thoroughly recommend this book, it was a highlight of the books I’ve read so far this year.


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

This book is important. It's important to Northern Ireland. It's important for the LGBTQA+ community, and it's important to the church community.

It's also very important to me personally.

I was a little hesitant to read it, to be honest. I'm a bisexual woman from a very repressed Christian background. I don't like reading about such groups. I don't like the reminder of who I was and what I was part of. It pains me.

This book did pain me in many places, but I'm so thankful Shirley wrote it. I picked it up because I trusted her to handle the topics within just right and she has done an amazing job.

The characters are so three-dimensional and the perspective is balanced. That's a very hard thing to do. Something I could not have done.

I am broken by the twist at the end and I am in awe.
This book will stay with me.
I am glad of that.

“Family doesn’t exist, I told myself. Not for people like me, anyway.”

Cari has spent her life being bounced from one foster home to the next, never staying in one place long enough for any to feel like family. Now sixteen, her latest placement is with Dawn and Jacky, an elderly couple from Ballybaile, Northern Ireland who are “seasoned God-botherers”.

Three months into this placement Robin Merrow, a boy from Cari’s school, goes missing. The local rumour mill is having a field day, particularly Jessica and “the God squad”.

Cari has been spending time with Jessica and her Youth Fellowship friends at the urging of her foster parents but she’d much rather be hanging out with Stevie B., Brains and Muff, who relieve some of Cari’s boredom with actual fun. Jessica’s friends were mostly interchangeable to me but I really liked Brains.

The people in the town seemed to forget all about Robin’s disappearance after a while and while I did eventually learn a summary of his story, none of its content was really dealt with. While several social themes are touched on in this book, most don’t get a great deal of page time, such as when a character suddenly blurted out something huge about their past.

The blurb is accurate to a point, although the book ended up veering off into an entirely unexpected direction. Had I had any indication that a major plot point would focus on the intersection between homosexuality and Christian faith I may have steered clear.

To be fair, some characters in this book are not judgemental and others are well intentioned but naive. However there are also those who wander into conversion therapy territory. Sadly these conversations are quite realistic; I have heard eerily similar accounts from friends whose churches attempted to ‘heal’ them of homosexuality. With a reasonable amount of this story taking place around church activities I enjoyed Cari’s perspective as an outsider.

I identified with Cari’s feelings about foster care and would have liked to have seen this explored further. Her foster mother, Dawn, is firm but caring and Jacky, her foster father, is essentially a teddy bear. I adored Jacky. Cari fairly consistently doesn’t come home when she’s supposed to and they know she’s not truly sorry when she apologises, yet they still decide they need to trust her more by converting the garage into an apartment for her. This didn’t ring true for me. Having had my own experience with a Christian foster family that were of the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ persuasion, I appreciated Dawn and Jacky’s genuineness, but they did seem too good to be true.

Content warnings include depression, homophobia and mention of sexual assault and bullying.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Atom, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group (UK), for the opportunity to read this book. I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.

What an amazing and thought provoking book!
It's well written, heart-wrenching, and engrossing.
I appreciated how the writer was able to write the characters amaking you root for them and feel the hurt and the joy. I also appreciated the realisti description of a foster situation.
I liked the style of writing and I think that Cariad is an amazing characters, fleshed out and realistic.
It was a great reading experience and I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

There's something about the voice of Cariad, the heroine of this story, that draws you in instantly. It's the slightly abrasive, almost rude tone, coupled with her insecurity, I think. She's a child in care trying to put on a tough front, ultimately wanting to be loved and accepted by her new family, but afraid she'll never be good enough. And it comes across so convincingly. I utterly believed her as a character within a few paragraphs, making me wonder if the author has some experience with the foster system in some capacity. That, or they researched it incredibly well.

The story deals with a number of facets of the theme of acceptance - accepting yourself, accepting others, and the problems that narrow mindedness, particularly around religion, can cause for people. The religious stuff was painful, because McMillan cleverly makes sure you know that most of the people involved are good people. Cariad's church friends, her foster parents - they aren't awful people by any definition. They're just trying to be good by the parameters they've been handed. The rejection of LGBT people by the church is bad enough, the idea of conversion therapy is horrendous, and I think McMillan handled it really well within the story.

The only thing that prevented this being a five star read for me was the character Robin. There was so much interesting stuff going on there, and he seemed very damaged to me - something that just wasn't explored in enough detail to be fully satisfying.

Overall, this was a compulsive, gripping read, with superb characterisation for the main character, and some deep and difficult themes explored. Highly recommended. 4.5 stars.

I received a free copy via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is very thought provoking, filled with content that a teenager goes through. LGBTQ issues., religion, etc are among these.
It's well written captivating me. Especially Cariad was a character I cared for.
I'd recommend it.

Thanks a lot to the publisher and NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow, this was an unexpected delight!

I decided to read this book as the main character (Cariad) is a 16 year old girl in foster care. I have previously fostered teenagers and so was intrigued to see how she would be portrayed.

Over the years Cariad has kept her defences up, no-one gets too close and so she won't get hurt. She can't conform to the rules set for her, and, actually when reading you can see partly why! I completely understood her viewpoint. She is placed with an older Christian couple which from the outset seems like a poor match, Cariad is not religious at all and would rather be anywhere else. She has to meet with the local church Youth Fellowship, which she doesn't hate, but aren't exactly her type of friends.

She does have friends from school and even a “sort-of” boyfriend, so she does all the “usual” teenage things, staying out past curfew, drinking, kissing boys! But when another boy from school goes missing things change. There are rumours and gossip. Cariad goes to the cliffs (a place she likes to visit) and sees him there, things unravel and he asks her to keep his secret.

Two of her best friends are gay and in a relationship. A lot of the storyline moves to how living in such a religious society affects them and how some sectors of religion are homophobic. This has a major impact on where the plot is taken and how her friendships change. I was not expecting such an important and impactful storyline in this book, I thought it was just going to be a standard YA mystery! It shows how people can be torn between their faith and their sexuality and how communities and societies view them.

There is a darker side, towards the very end of the book which I won't give away. Truly a rollercoaster of emotions whilst reading.

At the end the author has added a note signposting various LGBTQ organisations and LGBTQ Christian groups you can contact if you feel you need to, which I think is and excellent idea. As well as a note for straight/cisgender young people on how to support your LGBTQ friends and be a good ally – I will be taking inspiration from this to use in the school I work in with teenagers as a talking point.

The book was a fairly quick read, I read it in a day as I just couldn't put it down.

4.5/5.

I requested to read this book as I am interested in reading stories that explore teens living in foster care, issues about identity and religion, and family/teen relationships. Cariad's struggles and search for answers in her life sounded compelling and I looked forward to discovering more about the boy who disappears and why Cariad is so troubled by him. While I had hopes this would be a book I would enjoy, I have unfortunately found myself unable to continue reading it at 40%.

The opening chapters of Every Sparrow Falling were promising. I enjoyed learning a little about Cariad's background in numerous foster families, many of whom ended their care of her due to her misbehaving, and enjoyed her snarky wit and thoughts about world issues and how she saw herself. I thought her character was strong to begin with and was interested in some of the other minor characters, as well and wanted to see where the story would go moving forward.

However, I ended up losing interest in Cariad and the story too soon. One of the main reasons for this is that I couldn't understand Cariad's interest in Robin, the boy who would disappear, or why the whole school was so interested in him and his personal affairs. I didn't find the gossip about him compelling, which meant I also ended up not really caring about his part of the story when it came up later in the book. He didn't feel real to me, and not even in that good mysterious way. I was just not excited by him.

Another reason I became disenchanted by the book was Cariad herself. While I understood the purpose of her being careful, protecting herself by not getting close to people and making sure her reputation stayed intact by not getting too friendly with the Christian girls etc, I just found her underdeveloped. I didn't mind the fact that she enjoyed "getting off", drinking and smoking, that's all part of the character, but those elements just didn't interest me. For whatever reason, the depth in her character was lost to me underneath all the layers Cariad had created to protect herself. I found myself unable to find enough truth in her character for her to be compelling to me.

There is one section of the book after the opening chapters I did enjoy and that was a discussion between Cariad and one of her new foster parents Jacky while they were out on a walk. There were definitely some well-written parts in the book that were interesting and developed the characters in unexpected ways. But unfortunately for me, there just wasn't enough of them.

Perhaps I have completely missed something about this book, but I will never know. Characters are often more important to me than the actual plot. I love character focused stories. The fact that I ended up feeling disconnected from Cariad and the other characters meant that I simply couldn't carry on reading this book. I hope other readers get more out of it than I did.

What an addictive read, read the whole thing in one sitting.
Cariad is such a well written character that you can't help but feel for her being in foster homes and the emotional defense mechanisms shes created for herself.

It sheds light on LGBTQ+ topics and religion, that leave you thinking long after you've finished the book.

This is a novel that is well worth a read.