Title: Brave Enough
Author: Kati Gardner
Genre: YA
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Cason Martin is the youngest dancer at the Atlanta Ballet Conservatory. She’s driven and determined, and she’s never really even considered if she wanted to dance. She never had a choice: her mother is the demanding artistic director at the conservatory and will not accept Cason being anything less than the best.
On the day of Cason’s injury, that ceases to matter, as an injury she’s been hiding turns out to be cancer. Now she finds herself in a children’s cancer ward, fighting to live and to come to terms with her new normal. Davis Channing knows how that feels. He survived cancer, and then beat drug addiction, although he lives with the temptation to use again every day. Volunteering at the cancer ward is his way to give back.
Cason and Davis’s friendship is tenuous, but what they both need, until his ex-girlfriend appears in his life, eager to lure him down old roads again, while the unthinkable happens to Cason. Turning their backs on each other is easiest, but is it what they really need?
Let me first say that I’ve never read The Fault in Our Stars, so I can’t make any comparisons to that novel (and I have no intention of reading it, because almost never will I choose to read a book that I know will make me cry. #sorrynotsorry). I found Brave Enough to be one of the most touching and inspiring books I’ve read this year. I felt for Cason on a deep level, and truly experienced her grief and other emotions along with her. Davis’s struggle was so well-done and brought an addict’s struggle to gut-wrenching life. Highly recommend!
Katie Gardner is a childhood cancer survivor, amputee, and a recovering actor. Brave Enough is her debut novel.
(Galley provided by North Star Editions/Flux in exchange for an honest review.)
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