Crenshaw (urspr publ 2015; utgåvan 2017)

This is the second Applegate I've read, after The One and Only Ivan, Like that book, this is deep book for young readers. Where Ivan, the captive gorilla, was melancholic, Jackson, the young boy here, seems on the surface like every other smart somewhat unsatisfied young adult heroes, trying to deal with the return of his childhood imaginary friend, the larger than human sized cat Crenshaw. As such, the book sucks you into what is eventually a very sad but realistic story of family woes. The trappings are fantasy, with hints that keep it right at the edge of whether Crenshaw really exists, but the book is about much more than that.

Highly recommended. ( )

As the threat of losing everything looms over Jackson and his family, an old imaginary friend reappears in his life. Crenshaw says he's there to help, but what can an invisible, human-sized cat do to aid him at this critical point? This compassionately written middle-grade novel of imagination and childhood struggle recalls the agony of a child surviving in a family in crisis and discovering what they need to survive in a chaotic world. ( )

Life is rough and unfair for Jackson and his family. They have been homeless before, living out of their van. Back then, A giant cat named Crenshaw joined Jackson as his imaginary friend. Then, when things got better, Crenshaw vanished. Now, a few years later, jobs and medical issues with Jackson's father have taken some bad turns, and it looks like they may be homeless again. And because he is needed, Crenshaw shows up again, but logical, scientific-minded Jackson isn't so welcoming this go around to inviting someone who can't possibly exist into his life.
The book deals with serious issues, and does not paint a rosy picture. The only real positive for Jackson, is that no matter how bad things are, his parents, sister, and he all love each other. That is never brought into doubt.
I didn't see that Crenshaw himself particularly did anything. He wasn't there much. Most of what he said seemed irrelevant. The more interesting parts of the book were the long stretches where the giant cat wasn't there and wasn't mentioned. The title character seemed almost superfluous. I would have preferred the book if had simply been the tale of a family struggling with homelessness, and how Jackson copes with it.
Crenshaw felt more like a gimmick than a character. ( )

Life's not perfect and this book is a dark one unexpectedly. I picked this up like most, expecting some goofy tale of a cat and a kid or an imaginary friend, instead it's darker.

Ugly truths stack up: MS riddling a parent, a child becoming the parent for his younger sibling, hunger, bad diets, homelessness, the lack of money, the having to sell all they own, no school education, moving, living in a car, having hardly enough food for a pet, stealing to feed his little sibling(he's 11). There's more, but his anxiety is displayed a lot, and how he shoulders it.

For a book under 250 pages this was painful, not in a badly written way or a bad way, in a too-close-to-home way, in the way you don't want to think a kid lays awake hungry and upset while his parents lie to him like this. In a way that is too real. Crenshaw does bring some comedy, but Jackson, our MC is too broken already. It shows in how he has to seek the truth because everyone has been lying to him.

This is a brutal read, and reminds us all that there could be kids feeling that way, living in cars with their parents and eating expired food. I wanted more from Jackson's parents, the way they took their kids things and sold them, the way they begged for money on the streets, the way they lied to their kids. I wanted more growth, but the ended is open, and it's a hopeful one. But everything looks good until it gets worse. So maybe this book ended on false hope and nothing more. ( )

This story made me sad. ( )