#Sarah Crossan

[quotefeeling]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[thehopefulquotes]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[thoughtkick]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[resqectable]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[surqrised]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[stay-close]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[perfectquote]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[shxpeshifterr]

[perfectfeelings]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[nightlyquotes]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[thepersonalwords]

“Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.” - Sarah Crossan , One

[thehopefulquotes]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[dk-thrive]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

— Sarah Crossan, One (Feltrinelli Editore, March 30, 2017)

[resqectable]

Here we are. And we are living. Isn’t it amazing? How we manage to be at all.

Sarah Crossan, One

[pollystyrene-draws]

Sarah Crossan's "Toffee"

Just wanted to write down some thoughts on a book I read today. I need to keep a reading diary for my Creative Writing module so I thought I might as well post it on here. A few light spoilers here and there, you have been warned.

20.12.2022 I've enjoyed Sarah Crossan's work for a while now, having read One and Moonshine a few years back. She writes in free verse which is really refreshing when you're used to prose. The book covers abuse, being a young carer, coming of age, dementia, and the free verse helped to blend between past and present. Dialogue never felt confusing even without tags due to the one-to-one nature of most scenes, which I enjoyed as a stylistic choice.

It was lovely to get to know the main character Allison, and the short "chapters" where she is asked about her facial burn give easy access to her character development, offering a sense of recurring structure to the book. I found it intriguing how she found comfort in becoming Marla's carer.

Whilst I am unfamiliar with the details, I believe Marla's dementia was handled with care and compassion. This book would probably be good to help people understand their loved one's condition. Some of the scenes spoke to my experiences of my own grandparents, which I thought was really nice. I liked the use of parallels between Toffee and Allison to help Marla and Allison bond and grow closer. The dancing scenes especially were lovely. I loved their friendship and gradual trust of each other. Marla was also super funny, which was great.

I liked the portrayal of Lucy. She was used to explore a number of topics, like superficial friendships, the isolation Allison has felt, plus a few ideas on the class divide. The contrast between her luxurious "white house" and Allison squatting/sleeping in a shed was very effective. Although exaggerated, it felt very familiar and spoke to the class divide present in Britain. This also made Lucy's actions around money and stealing later both more surprising / shocking, but also helped to contextualise them as out of boredom or apathy rather than desperation. Despite not seeing Lucy too much, she felt very real. The fluidity of the scenes meant Allison's time with Lucy and Marla blended together, giving an idea of the passage of time, which I liked.

Overall, the characters have entire lives away from the plot, which was great to see. Even Marla's son Dolan, with pretty unsympathetic actions shown in scenes, invited a sense of intrigue about his life outside of Allison's view. I enjoyed that characters seemed to have intricate family/friend trees that were tricky to follow in places as it made them feel more realistic. It also added to the sense of mystery surrounding Marla's past. From a writer's perspective, I thought the decision to have Allison's phone stolen was a clever way of removing her agency for a bit, enabling some needed character growth. I also liked that upon getting a new phone, it took her a while to log back in to her old life. I also thought that having Allison use multiple names enabled the reader to see multiple sides of dementia, and the difference between Marla with Allison vs Marla with Dolan helped to drive these differences home. I did feel like the abusive background Allison fled from got a little cliché in places, but it was written really well, so I don't mind. The portrayal of social services (through both visits to Allison's home, and the care worker Peggy) felt similar to what I had read before from other authors but this worked well as these services share the same common problems across multiple areas. It's effective portrayal; it complemented the story's themes well.

I feel like I missed a few points in the story (how did Marla know Toffee, for instance), but that's probably because the book was such a page turner that I read it cover to cover in about two hours. On reread, I'm sure these details will become much clearer! Even if such areas remain foggy, Toffee was a fantastic read, and a sweet, heart warming story. Crossan handled the mature themes with an effective and compassionate lens without ever talking down to the reader. I would definitely recommend.

[a-dumb-crow]