Review: Hold Still

        4 stars




Words cannot express how much I love these kind of books. they are actually hard to find.


this book is about a girl named Caitlin. Her best friend Ingrid killed herself and left her journal under Caitlin's bed. She found it when she was getting ready to go back to school from her leave of absence. This story follows the different stages of grief that Caitlin goes thru. She has hatred towards her photography teacher because since the death of her best friend her favorite teacher now ignores her. She also has no one to sit with at lunch, and finds herself getting more and more depressed. Her parents are worried about her and even bought her a bunch of wood because she used to like to build things out of it.

this story also follows Ingrid in different journal posts that connects the story in a great way. we meet Ingrid's crush who we find out later also had feelings for her. We also read how Ingrid started to get very depressed and how a lot of people missed the easy warning signs.

Caitlin gets a new friend named Dylan who is a lesbian and everyone at school will start gossip about their new budding friendship. Caitlin has to figure out a way to stay friends with Dylan and also let her best friend go. She finds herself starting fights with her new friend, and doesn't know how to explain it. Little does Caitlin know that her new friend also losses a person dear to her and she will find out later in the book who it is. Caitlin will also develop her first crush on a popular boy who gives her the time of day. Will it be out of pity or will this be a start of a great romance?

Lastly, Caitlin finally gets inspired to start her first project out of wood. A tree house, but not any ordinary tree house one someone could live in. will this work or will it be another ploy to make her parents happy and another way for her to grieve and be sad?