Review of Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler

Published: January 3rd 2013

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Format: Paperback

Pages: 378

ISBN: 9781442430365

Rating: 4/5 STARS

Goodreads:

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My Thoughts:

Hudson’s life has been a roller coaster of emotion, loss, cupcakes and responsibility in the three years since her parents spilt up and he moved across the country and lost contact indefinitely. On the night of on of her largest competitions in her figure skating career, Hudson finds the evidence of her father’s cheating and it throws her off her game. She looses the competition and gives up figure skating, her absolute passion in life.

Now, three years later, she’s known as the Cupcake Queen of Watonka while she hides out in her mother’s diner, Hurley’s.

I’m going to start with what I absolutely loved about this book, the setting. The winter setting is so different from the standard summer love story. I have always had such a deep love of winter, and maybe that’s because I live in the more moderate climate of Canada where it just rains all the time, but when it does snow and when I can go up to the mountains, i find it so incredibly magical. Ockler did an amazing job setting the scene for cold, blustery days that I could feel myself wanting to wrap up in my scarf and mittens.

The characters in Bittersweet were all so beautifully fleshed out. Hudson was an incredible protagonist, being drawn in so many different directions throughout the book, that she lost and found herself again in a perfect display of character development. My favourite character by far though would have to be her little brother, Bug. Bug was incredibly unique, with his experiments, adorable little glasses eh was always pushing up, and his whip like smarts, made him an instant favourite sibling in the book world for me.

I would have loved to have seen more interactions between Hudson and Josh, and less of a love triangle. It left too little time for me to realistically feel like Hudson had developed real feelings for Josh because of the few times they were together in the book. Luckily, the love story is so not the main focus of this book.

And the cover has to be one of my favourite covers out there. It shows Hudson’s love of baking, the icing sugar looks like snow to fit the setting, and the title has such a sweet meaning behind it.

A beautiful story about loosing important people, gaining new ones and realizing the importance of family, Bittersweet was an incredibly deep read. Sarah Ockler has fast become one of my favourite Young Adult Contemporary authors.