“There is nothing more rewarding than seeing young people grow, heal and find hope.”- Someone I Used to Know (2021)
This is my first Paige Toon book, and I know I am not settling at just one. For she exactly knows how to change the mundanity of coronavirus lockdown life into a sweet toast. Her latest book, Someone I Used to Know, has done just that.
Someone I Used to Know is a beautifully penned, moving story of unconditional love, loss, family, and second chances. What makes it more remarkable is that it delivers the delicate subject of foster care with compassion and in a tactful manner. I had minimal knowledge about foster care and its challenges, but I could expand my understanding thanks to this book.
The story starts with Leah, who returns to her parent’s home with her daughter Emilie in Yorkshire after learning about the shocking news of her dad. Leah’s husband Theo isn’t with them, and the return brings her back in contact with the former foster brother George, where there has been a lot of unresolved business to attend to.
Paige has done a fab job with the dual timelines, as the story flows seamlessly in the past and present. The story deviates towards the love triangle between Leah, George and Theo. Their fractured childhood, which leads to their unbreakable bond of friendship and how everything changes when George gets disappeared one day, is where you’ll lose your heart to Leah.
It’s been half a lifetime since they last saw each other, and a lot has happened in-between. Will Leah survive the wave of nostalgia and move ahead with her life, or George’s reintroduction will shape a different turn in their lives? That’s Paige’s magic for you.
Once again, Toon has delivered a great story that’s full of heart and warmth from start to finish. She explores a family’s heartfelt emotions that come in all shapes and forms throughout the novel. I really connected with Leah’s character and felt her happiness and pain as I read this book.
Someone I Used to Know is the appropriate title for this book. It explores the heartache of missing a loved one in great detail. It is difficult not to fall in love with the plot and storyline. You will get inspired by the deep values of foster care, which you will not meet in the typical love story. Toon makes you think about what it would really feel to come under the blanket of foster carers who are willing to give you more love than your own kin and how it feels to lose a family/sibling in the aftercare of adoption, which I doubt many people have seriously envisioned. This book gives you an insight into what life might be like for foster children and those around them. I cannot think of rating it anywhere below 5/5.
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Have you read any other novels by Toon? What would you recommend? 📚
To read our interview with the author Paige Toon, click here.
Someone I Used to Know by Paige Toon was published on 16th June 2021 by Penguin Books Australia. You can purchase the book here.
Title: Someone I Used To Know
Author: Paige Toon
Publisher: Penguin Books Australia
Pages: 384
MRP: 32.99$