Review: Bog Child + The Sky is Everywhere

Digging for peat in the mountain with his Uncle Tally, Fergus finds the body of a child, and it looks like she's been murdered. As Fergus tries to make sense of the mad world around him - his brother on hunger-strike in prison, his growing feelings for Cora, his parents arguing over the Troubles, and him in it up to the neck, blackmailed into acting as courier to God knows what, a little voice comes to him in his dreams, and the mystery of the bog child unfurls

Bog Child introduced me to the wonderful, passionate and intelligent writer Siobhan Dowd's. This book about loss made the tragedy of Dowd's pre-mature death all the more tragic. This literary masterpiece is simply breathtaking. I fell in love with the Main Character and empathised with his internal struggle. Dowd was able to intertwine two different storyline. There are two love stories, two immense self-conflict,  and two tragedies that are wrapped into one VERY awesome novel.

Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey
dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life—and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. 

The Sky is Everywhere is a poignant, touching and quirky story. It is about love and loss. These two contrasting themes are mixed together throughout the novel. Nelson's amazing and beautiful prose are able emanate the powerful emotions that threatens to overwhelm Lennie. From the disconnected feeling of not understanding how the world keeps going on as normal when your own life has been torn into pieces, to the all consuming passion of first love. You will simply NOT want to put this book down.