From Loss...Love

Canadian Thanksgiving is my second favourite holiday, after Christmas of course.  Thanksgiving for me is a time to spend with family out of the city just relaxing. I always bring a huge stack of books with me as this is a time when The Bear and The Bee spend time with their grandparents and really have no use for my husband or I.  This Thanksgiving I brought The Last Wish of Sasha Cade by Cheyanne Young and was totally enthralled. I escaped for an entire day to spend it with Raquel, Elijah, and Sasha. Given the subject matter it could have been really heavy, which I was prepared for.  What I wasn’t prepared for was the humour and the hope to come out of Sasha’s story. Like any fantastic YA novel Cheyanne Young weaves magic throughout, allowing us the feel the devastation of losing a friend and the aftermath of such a loss as well as the love and the hopefulness such a friend leaves behind.  

Sasha Cade is an amazing YA novel. There is heartbreak, profound loss, conflict, and love. I really connected with Raquel and recognized a lot of my high school self in that character. She is bookish and introverted and has incredibly strong ties to her friends. With Sasha gone she needs to rediscover who she is.  She is no longer Raquel, Sasha’s friend, but Raquel, a person in her own right. Many of us have similar high school experiences, of being associated with others and it’s a really great thing. It means you have a strong crew, people with whom you rely on. However, when that crew disappears, like when high school ends, we all go through a time of redefining and rethinking who we are as individuals.  Cheyanne Young lets us feel all of those feelings. A truly fantastical love story of a long lost brother, a best friend and the ghost of a friend who brings them together. In the same vein as some of the best rom-coms you will root for Raquel and Elijah and will be taken away with the honest and loving relationship of two best friends who even death cannot separate. I was transported for a day into the lives of Sasha and Raquel, having fond remembrances of my high school friendships, experiencing the ups and downs and thanking my lucky stars I made it through high school with an amazing crew of friends.