Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Representation: N/A
Trigger warnings: Mass death in a terrorist attack, plane crash and building collapse, earthquake, tsunami and cyclone mentioned, slavery, pregnancy, death of a brother and child from a fall and other relatives in the past, grief and loss depiction, physical assault and injury, bullying, ableism, ableist slurs
Score: Five points out of ten.
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What a disappointment. I wanted to read Back to Blackbrick for a while even though it's around a decade old now (and it shows) but never got around till now. I picked it up from the library and immediately started reading it. However, when I closed the final page, Back to Blackbrick underwhelmed me.

It starts with the first character I see, Cosmo, living with his grandfather, who has memory loss. Grief afflicts Cosmo since his brother died but who knows how much time has passed since then? If Cosmo still grieves over him, it implies that the event happened only recently. Back to Blackbrick takes an intriguing when Cosmo unexpectedly travels backward in time to Blackbrick Abbey, with his grandfather's fate hanging in the air. I spend the middle of the narrative on Cosmo's experience living in Blackbrick Abbey in its glory days, most likely in the 19th or 20th centuries.

I found it challenging to read Back to Blackbrick in more ways than one. The pacing is slow for a story under 250 pages with nothing much happening, and I couldn't connect or relate to Cosmo. He was monotonous at first but soon grew insufferable when he spoke some offensive terms. Cosmo calls a website launched in 2005 'recent.' That would be a stretch now. Also, one can tell Back to Blackbrick is antediluvian when Cosmo recounts tragedies that occurred in the 2000s, like the 2004 tsunami or the 2001 attacks. If the author tried to publish Back to Blackbrick now, the publisher would either reject it or edit it more thoroughly. The conclusion had character development but it wasn't enough to save the entire fictional composition. I'm done with this author.… (altro)

A middle-grade time travel book featuring young teen Cosmo who lives with his grandparents and is afraid that his granddad is going to be institutionalized for dementia.

Granddad gives him a key to the Blackbrick estate and begs him to go there. When he does, he is transported to the days of Granddad Kevin’s youth and works with him on the estate for a few weeks. In this time, he is able to find out a lot about Kevin’s background & when he returns to the present, tells Kevin about it so he can answer the social worker’s questions and not be committed.

Poignant passage when 16-year-old Kevin meets Cosmo and doesn’t know him.
Pg. 47
[Cosmo:] “'You really don’t have a clue who I am, do you?'
[Kevin:] And just as quietly he said, 'No sir, I don’t.'

It didn’t make a difference which stupid time zone I was in. Granddad Kevin didn’t know me in either of them. You don’t have to be recognized by every single person you’ve ever met. Wanting that would be egotistical. But there are one or two people in your life who should always know who you are. You’ll probably never know how important that is unless one of those people starts to forget you."… (altro)

"Una tarta de manzana llena de esperanza" es un libro muy sencillo de leer. Quizá es un poco muy juvenil para mi gusto, pero para gustos colores. Se siente acelerada en muchas ocasiones —el final está escrito a la carrera, no pudo cargar con todo el clímax que estuvo construyendo—, pudo haberse extendido mucho más. Así como hay cosas que pudieron haberse cortado perfectamente —esa mini-historia entre la madre de Paloma y el padre de Oscar no llegó a ningún lado—. En resumen, es una historia simple con un lenguaje sencillo que te ayuda a mantener un buen ritmo en la lectura (puedes acabar el libro en una noche). Aunque dudo que su narrativa pueda trascender más allá de una historia olvidable, quizá sea capaz de tocarte.

2/5… (altro)