hold still...

how does your life move forward when all you want to do is...hold still

by Nina LaCour

229 pgs read in 3 days

Jan 2011

I was doing my weekly food shopping a few weeks ago and, as always, I browsed the book isle even though I never buy my books at the food store. As I pass by the 'Young Adult' shelf I see the blue green cover of a teenage girl with her arms out in the wind. I read the title & excerpt above it "how does your life move forward when all you want to do is...hold still" (yes without caps). I picked the book up, already captured, and read the back to see if the story line is as good as I feel it will be and I love it. It isn't my usual type of book, love stories mostly by Nicholas Sparks or Nora Roberts and yes even Twilight (sigh..) but I have read a few books in the mind of teenage years or more so teenage girls. I put the book down and kind of make a mental note that I will add it to my list of books I want to read someday. At the time I was reading Nights in Rodanthe (blog that later). So now the book just keeps popping in my conscious, I even tell a friend about it and she says it sounds good. My daughter, who is 8, loves to read and I am trying to get her into bigger books, novels. She got a gift card (thanks Matty) to Barnes and Noble and has been dying to go! Sunday January 23rd she is bored, as I am too, and asked to go to the book store (how can I resist). We get there and I start browsing the shelves for hold still, only I don't remember the title as much as that cover. She gets bored with my quest and so I give up, go upstairs to Children's and look for just her. She found a dog book, Balto and is very happy with her choice. As we head back to the escalator I see a shelf on the way with young adult fiction, mostly vampire, supernatural stuff and stuffed in between a couple series is the blue green binding I recognize. I pull it out and there it is, "hold still". I, out loud, shout "yes!"

The story is about a high school girl named Caitlin who lost her BFF Ingrid at the end of the school year. Ingrid struggled with depression, unknown to her friends/family and committed suicide. Before doing so, she left her last diary under the Caitlin's bed to find at some point later on. Caitlin, who is now completely lost without her BF, has to go back to school and face life after Ingrid.

Okay so my thoughts on the book now, boy I hope I can stretch it out as long as the anticipation of buying it. The beginning got right to the point which I was a little surprised, no build up to the big moment when Caitlin's best friend Ingrid ends her life?! I do have this urge though, that I love, to stick with Caitlin and her grief to know the story. I love the character build up and the reality to the drama, not over doing it. As I read there is so much to identify with (no, not the offing myself part)! Maybe those high school years, teenage girl years are just so strong and such a part of who you are that it is easy to do this. I did take a photography class and did have similar friendships, feelings give or take and enough of me back to the book. I do not want to spoil your journey, that is not the purpose of my blog so I will end with my final opinion. I loved it, not the best book ever but I just like how it kept me going. Sometimes it isn't the story as much as the drive to keep me reading that I love. Ya know?!