Love Aubrey is the fantastic debut novel by new author Suzanne LaFleur, The cover of this debut teenage book says that Aubrey will make you cry and make you smile and the author doesn’t disappoint.
This is a heart-warming emotional tale of love, friends and most importantly family, which is set to become a cherished and well loved book for children and young teenagers. Aubrey has the ingredients of a classic children’s book.
Eleven year old Aubrey is on her own, something heartbreaking has happened and her mother has disappeared and left her.
“It was fun at first, playing house.
I made all my own meals. Crackers and cheese, three times a day. It’d been a good three days. A perfect world.
Then I ran out of cheese.”
Aubrey is discovered home alone by her grandmother Gram who takes her away from her home and Virginia all the way to Vermont and a new life without her mother or her family. Because what lies in Aubrey’s past is a terrible truth which Aubrey can’t handle and her mother has tried to run away from.
‘Vermont smelled like cows.
Virginia had smelled like cows too sometimes, but not like this.
“Vermont stinks,” I said.
Gram had nothing to say to that. I looked down at my shoes.
Soon we reached her yard. Her driveway was gravel under the trees. Her house, from the outside, was what I remembered: three stories grey, with a wraparound porch. I walked up to the porch with Gram beside me. I looked sideways. Gram’s face was wet. I stood in her doorway and threw up.’
With the support and love of her grandmother Aubrey starts again, and discovers a new network of support from her best friend Bridget and her family. With the love of her grandmother and through the letters Aubrey writes to people missing in her life, she begins to discover that although everything may seem lost it isn’t always the case.
Suzanne LaFleur writes in a truly captivating way, completely encompassing the world through a child’s eyes. Her easy flowing narrative and wonderful imagery makes Love Aubrey a delightful story for young teenagers and a must read. Is Love Aubrey a future classic children’s book?
This book is rated as a touch green because of it’s strong themes on relationships and its attitudes about being kind and caring.
