You know how sometimes when you finish a book, you sit quietly for a while just savouring the end of a tale told so very well? That’s what happened to me when I finished Read Sean Griswold’s Head. To say that I loved it would be sort of an understatement.Ms. Leavitt takes a subject that does not usually have a space in YA literature, makes it relatable, even personal, and shows the reader that a disease does not define a person, no matter how debilitating it is. What Payton’s father suffers is real. It cannot be dressed up in sparkles or spoken away with a few well meaning platitudes. It is real and it is there to stay. I love that Ms. Leavitt brought such an important aspect of contemporary life, living with parents who are suffering from diseases, into literature and she dealt with the issue in such a beautiful way that at the end you are left with a smile and some hope.Payton is a great character. She is snarky and flawed, very flawed but at the same time she retains this vulnerability about herself that makes the reader care about what is going on in her life. Some of the decisions she makes and some of the things she does will make you want to hit your head on the wall and yell at her for being such a stupid-head but this adds to her overall character and to the journey she undertakes. I found Payton to be someone I could relate to.Really relate to. You see, when I was in Grade 9, I came home one afternoon and my parents sat me down and told me that my mom had cancer. It is one of those moments that you will never forget no matter how long you live. I can tell you what I was wearing, where I was sitting, and the sound of my mother’s voice as she spoke, her scared expression. The only blankness is when I try to remember what I thought. Because at that moment, I did not think. The preceding days were tough. You see someone you put on a pedestal, someone who, to you, is infallible – this book shows how a child copes when she finds out that her father is merely human. A frail human.The relationships in the book are wonderfully complex. They are layered like an onion and there’s no one simple way to describe it. I also really like Sean Griswold. Head and all. YA novels need more love interests like him. That’s for sure. The writing and the pacing are crisp and the humour is interwoven through the narrative not as an afterthought but as a personality trait of the narrator.Even if you don’t usually read contemporary YA, I believe you should give this one a chance. It’s a beautiful novel and will leave you feeling warm and believing in humanity. I totally recommend this.
