Counting by Sevens

Reviewed by Esther.

Counting by Sevens is a book I read in school. I was not really looking forward to it because normally I like fast-paced action books the best, so I was a little bit skeptical about this one. Little did I know that it would be such an amazing story and an important one, none the less. 

In counting by 7s, author Holly Goldberg Sloan shows us the world through the eyes of Willow Chance, a very special kid who is super smart and kind-hearted but who everyone else thinks is strange. Willow has three, great, obsessive passions - medical practice, gardening and the number 7. These three things are what get her through the traumatic events in the book. And they are VERY traumatic. However I still recommend this book for 11-12 year olds (or if you have a really smart 10 year old…) The book is not scary, but be prepared, it is quite sad.

However more than just being sad I also found Willow's story very inspiring.

The author switches between Willow’s perspective and a few other characters and this gives the reader clever insight into how others see Willow. I thought this made the story super interesting and it made me think a lot about how sometimes we might judge people from our own perspectives, when  actually we don’t ever really know another person or what going on inside of them.
 
​I give this book 4 stars.