Bubbles: A Novel
- Cissarose the Hobbit

Hello again, everyone! Ellieanarose told me that I need to tell you about the Spring Festival before I begin. It was really wonderful and fun. The Shire is looking very Spring-like now. The Festival was a success, and we ventured over to Bree-land to celebrate with the Big Folk as well.

After the Spring Festival, I was tired, so it was time to head back to the Hobbit Library for this month's theme. I will admit that I did think about bubbles... like soap and those kid's toys that create bubbles. I quickly decided against it and decided to think about things differently and stumbled across a rather interesting book.

Bubbles: A Novel is a book by Abby Cooper and centres around twelve-year-old Sophie Mulvaney. When I 'met' Sophie, her world had fallen apart. Her mother split up with her boyfriend and, as far as Sophie knew, lost her job. Then, to put the cherry on top, her teacher makes the class do a project about risk-taking. Now, that may not seem a lot to adults, but that is a lot to handle for a twelve-year-old.

The story takes a turn when Sophie begins to see bubbles above people's heads. They show what the person is thinking and not saying. Now, to me, that sounds funny and cartoon-like, but Sophie was scared and confused. I can see why. That would be such a strange thing to see and kinda scary as well. It meant that she could read people's thoughts. This included her best friends, Kaya and Rafael. It did make things rather awkward for Sophie because she couldn't say anything. She did tell Kaya eventually. I think that must have been awkward for both of them.

The story moves on, causing a strain in the friendship of Sophie, Kaya, and Rafael. A new girl, Viv, gets involved, and it isolates Sophie from her friends a lot. She's already struggling with everything, and that leads to her forgetting to submit the registration papers for the mini-triathlon that the three, and Viv, are participating in. I honestly felt sorry for Sophie as she was trying to cope with a lot, and then she forgets to submit the papers.

This then leads to her taking a risk by setting up her own triathlon, which leads to some revelations as well. The first is that Kaya's project was her friendship with Rafael and Sophie. Sophie's was the mini-triathlon, and Viv's was becoming friends with Sophie, Kaya, and Rafael. It was really interesting to see how Sophie's bubbles could lead her down the wrong path a lot. It did end up all working out.

The one thing I loved about Sophie is that she never gave up. Despite everything that was wrong in her life, she carried on! It all worked out in the end. The biggest shock was that she lost the bubbles. They appeared to come to her when she needed them and went afterwards just as quickly. I would recommend this book. I enjoyed reading it a lot.

That's all for this month. Briellerose will be back next month!

Lots of love,
Cissarose xx