Stay Another Day by Juno Dawson

Wildcard ~ December

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

My opinion in three sentences:

The longer I’ve waited to write this review, the more this book has grown on me (and it’s sprung to mind several times since when certain things have happened or I’ve noticed something particular in the Real World™). I went into the book with some expectations for a fun yet drama-filled and festive read, which both was and wasn’t what I got – it was fun, festive and full of drama, but really too much so for the latter. The humour passed me by with little more than a grimace, too, and I really struggled to connect to the characters (who were all thoroughly dislikeable rather than morally grey), which put the dampeners on much of the momentum.

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

Dawson has a really great handle on the main themes in this book. There is no attempt to make anything neat, tidy or straight-line-recovery, which is a much more accurate depiction of mental health than in many books. The multiple perspective also enabled the issue to be presented from different angles, too, offering a more comprehensive discussion into how we all affect one another. So, not only were the key themes well-researched and presented, they were done so in a different way, too, offering some food for thought.

A warning for the book:

For a character-centric novel, I expected at least some likeable characters, or morally-dubious ones that offered some sort of personal thought dilemma. However, the whole cast of the book were rather dislikeable and difficult to relate to, which greatly slowed the momentum of the storyline. Sure, as the book progressed you begin to understand them more, but it wasn’t really enough to spur things along (and in some cases, still didn’t add much depth to them.)