My Rating ~ Five Stars

RELEASE DATE: 23 March 2020

Format: Paperback

Pages: 336

Publisher: Harper Collins Australia

Today is my tour stop on the bookstagram tour for How to Grow a Family Tree, thanks to Read the Book Tours and Harper Collins Australia!

If you’re interested in becoming a tour host, or you are an author or publisher who would like to arrange a tour for a book, contact Read the Book Tours here

Blurb

Stella may only be seventeen, but having read every self-help book she can find means she knows a thing or two about helping people. She sure wasn’t expecting to be the one in need of help, though.

Thanks to her father’s gambling addiction, Stella and her family now find themselves living at Fairyland Caravan Park. And hiding this truth from her friends is hard enough without dealing with another secret. Stella’s birth mother has sent her a letter.

As Stella deals with the chaos of her family, she must also confront the secrets and past of her ‘other’ family. But Stella is stronger than she realises.

Review

Stella and her family have been forced to move to the town’s caravan park, due to her father’s gambling addiction. She doesn’t want anyone at school to find out, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than living at Fairyland. And Stella helps people, not the other way around. She’s read all the self help books she can, and knows exactly what to do to fix problems. Except now she’s received a letter from her birth mother and she doesn’t want to open it. And her father’s gambling problem has not gone away.

As Stella’s life seems to spiral further out of control, she starts to see the other residents at Fairyland a little differently, and may have to come to terms with the fact that you can’t fix everyone, nor do they always need to be fixed.

This was such a powerful and hard hitting book. Watching Stella and her sister try to help their father with his addiction had me feeling both sad and angry on their behalf. It’s always difficult seeing situations that kids should just not ever have to deal with, but I loved the message in the background – that many things are not black and white.

How to Grow a Family Tree dealt with some really heavy topics in a way that was still enlightening and easy to read. The characters were brilliant and I cared about the side characters just as much as Stella. A book that keeps you thinking long after you finish reading, I would highly recommend this one!