October, October by Katya Balen

I have to start with saying that this book was hard to put down. Every time I read a chapter, I’d go to do something and just be thinking about what I had read.

October is a wild child in her beliefs. she lives in the woods with her father and loves to run around in the woods. she can cut down trees and knows what plants can help when you’re hurt. She is at home in nature but when her father has an accident and he is rushed to hospital, October’s life is turned upside.

Forced to move to London so that the person “that is her mother” can care for her, October must adapt to her new surroundings. Her old life does not fit the mould of the big city but can she find a new way to put her past and present together?

What I really loved about this story was that October is a child in all sense of the word and the way that Katya Balen write her, you can really empathise with her 11 year old thinking. You get an 11 year old that is having adult thoughts, October’s thoughts and worries are very juvenile (like how she thinks her father will hate her for what happened) but you also get the sense she is a wild animal because a lot of her thoughts revolve around fight or flight.

Besides October, the other characters in the story are very well written, especially October’s mother. This is a women who couldn’t adapt to living in the woods so has been separated from her child for many years. The compassion and motherly love that she tries to show to October really make you feel for her. She is trying to calm this wild child who at every opportunity lashes out like a caged animal.