"Coral," by Sara Ella

Audience: Young Adult

Genre: Fantasy/Contemporary/Retelling

Overall Content Rating: Clean

Content Warnings

Suicide Topics

Suicide

Self-harm

Overall Review

This book is one of those books that's impossible to summarize in one word. It's too incredible, too magical, too openhearted and raw, too... everything. This book was absolutely incredible.

Coral is a tri-POV (point of view) book written from the views of Coral, Brook, and Merrick. It's a journey through depression, anxiety, and loss. Over the course of the book, the three of them all have to find themselves despite the intense turmoil around them and Ella created the whole workings of the story beautifully.

When I first opened up the book, it was a bit hard to get into. I can't say this was due to the story itself being boring, but instead, it got into the hard topics so fast and I wasn't mentally prepared for it.

This book took me over nine months to read when I usually finish books in a matter of days.

If that doesn't say something as to how hard this book might be to get through, I don't know what will. The truth is, anyone who struggles with suicidal ideation, with depression, who has dealt with loss in any way—particularly if you've dealt with loss by suicide—I'm going to warn you, this book is going to hit you hard. You may be like me, who thought that they could handle it. It wasn't real, they were past that. The truth is, we're usually not 'past' everything we think we are.

I know I sure wasn't.

My favorite part of this book was the insane plot twist near the end. That was just so masterful and while I won't say much because of spoilers, from a writer's point of view, that blew. my. mind. Another thing I loved was the sheer vibrancy of the feelings, the raw pain that managed to be so beautiful, and just how everything was so authentic.

Overall, even though this book took me so long to read, it was so worth it. Every last bit of pain, every last bit of struggle, every last moment of my time that I had to set aside and just push myself through it. It was worth it to me. This was such a good book.

I will say, though, that if you're going through a hard time, maybe don't read this book. This one's going to pull you under, and if you aren't ready to deal with that, don't read it. It's not a matter of strength, it's a matter of what you've had to go through. And if you've gone through a lot, no matter how strong you are, it's going to hit you hard. Even those who haven't gone through this may cry or have to set this aside. It's a heavy book, and if you can't read something like this, that's okay! Just because this was a stellar book doesn't make it ideal for everyone.

Author's Note: This book review was originally posted on my other blog, TheFrogBlog. It was edited to meet the criteria of this blog, but if you would like to see it in its original form, please read: https://www.thefrogblogandfriends.org/post/coral-by-sara-ella