I received a free e-copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

3 stars.

I feel really conflicted about this book. I want to love it, given that it is about a struggle with anxiety, which I have personal experience of, and later learning that the main character suffers from aphantasia, which I also have, it should be right up my street. I just didn't manage to connect with the characters as much as I would have liked to.

I'll start with the non spoiler points and then mark the spoilery section with the spoiler tag, I wouldn't recommend reading the spoiler section without reading the book, I went into this expecting to absolutely hate it after accidentally reading a negative review containing spoilers, and it really coloured my view of the book. Just read the book people.

Jessa is a pretty girl, with a life that seems perfect, she has the athlete boyfriend, the handbag designer Mom and twin half-brothers. In reality her boyfriend is cheating on her, pressuring her to have sex and knows almost nothing about her, she feels like her Mom ignores the things about her that would disrupt her perfect life, and she seems to feel almost resentful towards her entire family. She also has Generalised Anxiety Disorder. After a car accident she develops aphantasia and begins to see bruises and wounds on the faces of the people around her, but those wounds are not real.

Aphantasia is when you cannot imagine things you can sense, there are varying ways aphantasia can affect each person but in Jessa's case she cannot picture anything in her mind's eye, she is 'mind-blind'. Although the author does not have aphantasia herself, she states that she had done a lot of research into the topic and in my opinion, being 'mind-blind' myself, she does a spectacular job of describing it. Jessa's struggle feels authentic, I cannot honestly say that I would have written anything differently. I just wish that aphantasia was mentioned in the synopsis as I have never come across another book which explore it.

The anxiety portrayed feels a little less authentic to me, but I am going to say that the author does struggle with anxiety herself and so this is likely to be down to the fact that everyone experiences mental health differently and no two people are ever going to have the exact same struggle.

The main reason I didn't completely fall in love with this book is that there was just nothing that made me invested in the story, while the explanation behind the phantom wounds was a brilliant idea, I saw it coming around halfway through the story and wish that it had have been revealed earlier in order to really flesh it out. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, I liked Marshall but only for the comic relief, I liked Hannah but only until her personality began to change fairly early on. I think the character I connected to most was Jessa's dad, I felt sorry for him always being shut down when he tried to help his daughter, I found myself irritated with Jessa for how ignorant she was about how she was treating him. I found reading this book more interesting for the aphantasia and anxiety elements than for the characters or the story. I just feel like if certain elements had been explained earlier or in more detail, I would have been more invested.

Now on to the spoilers...

<spoiler>
I knew from the second the 'doctor' at the accident placed Jessa's driver's licence in plain view, he either didn't intend to stick around or wasn't visible to anyone else. While this didn't immediately lead me to think 'Angel', I did begin to wonder if Jessa was hallucinating. Throughout much of the book I held the view that this is what was happening.

The ending disappointed me, I have no problem with the religious aspect, but I did have a problem with the insinuation that Jessa is now magically better and that the mental health professionals who tried to help her were all wrong. I think this is a dangerous thing to include in a YA novel, while many people find that faith is important in their recovery from traumatic events and mental illness, professional therapy and medication should not be depicted as unilaterally ineffective. While I acknowledge that Jessa decides to attend therapy in the conclusion of the book, it is such a throwaway line that I almost missed it, and I was looking for it. Teens need to know that there are many options to consider when dealing with mental illness, and that a few therapy sessions or a short experience with one medication does not mean that those options are ineffective, therapy is a long and complicated process and medication can involve a lot of trial and error. My fear is that someone already frustrated with therapy or medication may lose even more commitment to those options and may suffer for it.

I think that the idea of being able to see the damage to the soul in peoples' faces is a fantastic one, I cannot express how excited I was when I figured it out, but then Jessa remained largely clueless for most of the rest of the book and when she did finally figure it out, she lost the ability soon after. Even the man that nobody else could see interested me, but that was never really explored either. I just wish these avenues had been better and more thoroughly explored earlier in the book.

I choose to believe that Jessa was hallucinating, and knowing that psychiatric medications can take various lengths of time to become effective, those hallucinations stopped when her meds began to help, along with the relief of finally being able to open up about her struggles. I think that may be the only way to alleviate my frustration with the ending.
</spoiler>

Lesson learned: Never judge a freebie book based on its "freebie" status! So not only did I receive a copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, it was also a 'download now' free copy, meaning that I didn't have to be approved or anything in order to read it. I usually equate these books--in my mind--to the freebies of the ARC world. That aside, I thought that this book was a really good read and I very much enjoyed it.

Jessa has suffered from an anxiety disorder since her father left her mother when she was just twelve years old. Now, at 17, she is barely getting through school living with her mom in L.A. and clinging to her prepster boyfriend. Until one night at a party changes everything. A near-fatal car accident leaves Jessa's face scar-ridden, and her brain nearly as damaged, she decides to leave everything behind to live with her dad in Colorado. Here she meets new people, reconciles with her father, and learns about the true measure of healing both inside and out.

Don't you just love these kind of books where you know right from the first page that you're going to love them? Because when I picked up All Things New and started reading it, I had that exact feeling. I couldn't even figure out why that was - the writing, maybe? The opening scene, because I just love college party scenes? I have no idea. It was probably both, mixed with this character that seemed so interested that I wanted to find out more and more, get lost in her world and not come back for a while. And Lauren Miller managed to write that kind of book for me - one I never wanted to end.

And even when I somehow knew what the mystery was all about after Jessa's accident, I was still under Lauren Miller's writing spell and couldn't put the book down. She seems like the kind of author that knows exactly how long a scene should be, like she has developed a feeling for it over the years of writing novels. Or perhaps she knows what the readers want to read, not being bored by dragged scenes, forced words and annoying facts. It has a good length and everything was sorted out at a good pace.

I think only few books capture the importance of speaking up about mental illness in a athentic way. Some characters are over the top, some escape their demons without any struggle as if it's the easiest thing in the world. Even though it isn't. And I think Jessa's character is the perfect example. Her problems might not seem that big of a deal to some, but I liked that certain realness to her - to all the characters, really. Her friends dealt with their own problems as well. Lauren Miller found an honest voice, ripped things down to a raw level that had me in tears several times.

There's beauty in everything and so it's no miracle that despite all the things Jessa has been and is going through during the story, there were a lot of aww! moments, too. Dare I say how awesome I think Marshall is?! He's like this inconspicuous guy, but of course there is more to him than that. Like certain types of magnets, I loved how drawn together he and Jessa were. I adored them.

Perhaps this book is more of a self help books than those books intended. As mentioned before, there is no sugarcoating anything in All Things New and I loved it to pieces. It's one of my favourite novels of the year and I can't wait for more people to discover their love for it. It's unlike anything I've read more, classified to the pile of books that really did an impact on me.

All Things New is about a teenage girl who suffers from generalized anxiety disorder. Jessa’s attacks started when her parents got divorced and her father moved away. Her only real friend was her boyfriend, Wren, or so she thought. He cheated on her during a New Year’s Eve party at his house. When Jessa left his house, her anxiety in full force, she was in a horrific car accident. After the accident, Jessa’s dad encouraged her to live with him and start anew in a different type of high school. This was when the story became even more intense… with Jessa suffering from not only her facial accident scars, but an increase mental illness that had her seeing bruises and scars on other people she met like her classmates. However, with the help of her new friends, her dad,and boyfriend, Jessa’s “scars” start to heal.
Jessa’s encounter with the “man in the white coat” was a very interesting twist to this story as well as the analogy with Descartes’s philosophy to her life.
The characters are complex, the plot is intriguing, and the dialogue is engaging. This is a fascinating YA read!

Jessa Gray is seventeen, with a boyfriend she loves, a few friends, and a place she belongs. At least, a place she looks like she belongs: living with her mom and hanging out with her boyfriend’s crowd. But inside, Jessa is a mess, suffering horrible panic attacks that medication and therapy haven’t helped, and always feeling like an outsider. When a terrible accident leaves Jessa with a brain injury, she sees bruises and scars on everyone around her, and thinks she must be going crazy for real. The chance to move to Colorado with her dad and start over is Jessa’s lifeline.

Instead of being the haven she was looking for, the move makes Jessa’s anxiety worse, until she meets Marshall, the quirky boy with a heart defect who makes her see life a whole new way. Though Jessa starts to feel like she belongs in this new life, she still sees wounds on everyone around her, and wonders if she’ll ever be “normal” again.

I’ve never suffered from anxiety quite like Jessa did, although I do have the occasional panic attack that sends my brain into a frenzy and throws the world into chaos. All Things New captures the pandemonium of anxiety and panic attacks, and shows readers just what if feels like to live with these issues. More importantly, it shows what it’s like to survive with them, and to grow. Jessa is entirely relatable, she doesn’t think she’s normal, but she is: everyone is dealing with something, which she eventually learns. Marshall is funny and sweet, and he helps Jessa look at the world without the veil of her anxiety. Both humorous and heart-wrenching, All Things New is an enthralling read, bursting with vivid life.

(Galley provided by Three Saints Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

full review on Goodreads

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick and easy read, all in it must have taken maybe 3/4 hours to finish, but I enjoyed it. Jessa's story interested me as soon as I saw the description, I thought the author did a pretty good job at describing panic attacks/generalised anxiety disorder. I enjoyed Marshall and Hannah's characters as well. The idea of seeing visible signs of people's mental health was interesting, pretty confusing at first I thought, I wouldn't say it was my favourite part of the book, but I didn't completely hate it. I could feel myself rolling my eyes when the talk about angels started though, again, an interesting idea, but again, I could have done without that part. Overall I liked the book, a quick read that kept me interested all the way through.
3/5 stars

“That’s the thing about the invisible world, I guess. Where souls get battered and minds get muddled and hearts get broken again and again. It’s a war zone, a disaster area, but no one wants to talk about how messed up things are, so we let each other pretend. We play along, we act like we’re all okay. But we’re not okay. All the junk we’re hiding is right there, right in front of us, right within us. The brokenness, the desolation and the despair. We tell ourselves it’ll get better if we just ignore it. But wounds don’t work that way. Leave them open, and you’ll bleed out.”

All Things New is the story of Jessa, a girl who has struggled for years with panic attacks and anxiety. Jessa has pushed all of her struggles and suffering down inside of her, shielding herself from the world and from any prying eyes by attempting to act as though everything is always fine.

After a car accident turns her life even more upside down, Jessa moves to a new school where she meets a girl named Hannah and Hannah’s twin brother, Marshall. As Jessa starts to let Marshall and others in to her life, she begins to realize the importance of being open and honest about her struggles as well as reaching out to others about their own.

All Things New is a story about suffering, hidden struggles, despair, loneliness, and the hope that can be found in the midst of our darkest times.

I found this story to be moving, engaging, and hopeful. So many stories that could be comparably similar to this type of YA fiction end in a less than hopeful way, so All Things New was refreshing. I think anyone could have some sort of a connection with Jessa – I know I see a lot of myself in her. Marshall is one of the more memorable characters in the books I’ve read recently – he’s sarcastic, honest, kind, and hilarious. Not only is the story well written, but the messages and themes are key for today’ world. It is a story that I believe will help many people – from adults to teens - to see what they’ve been avoiding and hiding and where there might be healing from those things in the sharing of them with others.

All Things New is a hopeful and important reminder that though we are all broken in our own different ways, we are not alone in our suffering. We can find hope amidst the brokenness and light amidst the darkness.

“We see what we want to see, what we expect to see, instead of what’s really there. I don’t think we do it on purpose, most of the time. We just get kind of stuck. We start thinking that the way things are is the way they’ll be. But that’s not true. It can’t be true. Because the world is never still.”

This story is very difficult for me to review. I have never read anything similar or came across similar disorders in my everyday life. I solely requested this book because I’ve had my eye on Lauren Miller ever since I’ve read her sci-fi novel “Free to fall” a few years back. This one is very different but I can attest that her writing has only gotten better; it matured like good wine that warms your insides and goes straight to your head.

From the first pages of the book is known to the reader that Jessa, a 17 yo girl, is suffering from an anxiety disorder since she was twelve and her parents divorced, and often has panic attacks. After many failed attempts in therapy, inefficient drugs prescriptions and support group meetings she managed to convince herself that if she appears to be well then she is well and she resorted to suppress her condition or ignore it altogether. This behavior resulted to Jessa’s withdrawal from her friends, alienation from her mother and the obsessive attachment to her boyfriend of two years, Wren. But something happens in the beginning of the story that turns Jessa’s world upside down and throws her off the wagon.

”I’m talking about this moment, which came out of nowhere and swallowed up everything else.”

Now she has to face the fact that she can’t hide what’s happening inside her because she lost her perfect mask. And she can’t cope with this change. Other side effects from her accident add more malfunctions to her already troubled mind and enhance her inability to find her previous balance.

“Except I’m not Barbie anymore, not unless they make an Accident Victim Barbie, Brain Injurie Barbie, ew mommy that one is scary-looking, take her away Barbie. As if Barbie can be anything but flawless, anything other than hollow and plastic and perfect.
When she stops being that, she stops being Barbie. She’s just a broken ugly doll that nobody wants.
That dirt is everywhere, I am sinking in it, I can’t breathe. Like sewer water bubbling up through a crack in the pavement, the truth of how messed up I am is on the surface now. It’s all anyone will see.”

For me, these first chapters were very confusing. Jessa’s thoughts are very chaotic, the perception of her surroundings is misconceived and untrustworthy, she’s being rude to her family and the hospital stuff, she questions everything anyone tells her, trying to find hidden meanings behind simple things, always misinterpreting their intentions for the worse. I often caught myself being, instead of sympathetic, exasperated with her behavior, calling “please just get over yourself for one minute, it’s not the end of the world”. But then I thought that having this condition that went unaddressed for so long and was ignored not only from Jessa herself, but from her mother too, totally justified such behavior. And that for Jessa, this probably was the end of the world. The end of her world as she knew it. Not everyone has the strength to believe in his capability to overcome any curve-ball life throws at him.

Me, for one, am a very strong and cool headed person - I take that after my dad. I can easily accept facts or situations that are out of my control and seem to adapt to change as easily. And because of these “traits” of my character I often don’t appear to have the necessary empathy for others who don’t share my good fortune in genes, and I might come as cruel or unfeeling. So I want to apologize in advance, if my thoughts and feelings presented in my review, offends anyone who reads it. Believe me, it’s not my intend to hurt anyone’s feelings, it’s just my ignorance in the matter of anxiety and my inability to relate.

After the accident, Jessa moves from California to Colorado to live with her dad and start fresh. She enrolls in the local high school, where she meets Hannah and her twin brother Marshall. The three of them soon become friends who spend a lot of time together and though Jessa has put some ground rules for her new life permitting herself to acquire a new boyfriend, she surprisingly finds herself attracted to Marshall’s winning personality.

“Wren used to give me butterflies, but this is more like a frog on speed, thumping in a jar.”

What I noticed early on, was that Jessa interacts with as few people as possible, often hiding herself in secluded places or avoiding socializing at all cost. It had me wondering how it is possible for a young person to have only 3 people in her life. Of course her newly acquired condition “aphantasia” doesn’t help things in her new environment. It makes her question herself all the time and not being able to trust her mind turns her seclusive even more.

“I try to envision the house, or their piano, or Hannah’s face, something, anything, but I am sucking air from a drained glass, scraping a spoon against the bottom of an empty bowl.”

I didn’t expect to care so much about the other characters in the story, what with being constantly in Jessa’s mind and all, but eventually I cared because Jessa started to care. Hannah is a girl that appears to be strong, self-sufficient, very determined to succeed in her goal, healthy. Marshall, on the other hand, was born with a heart defect which wears on his sleeve and exploits in every opportunity. He likes being pampered all the time but he is more than a spoiled brat. Of course nothing is what appears to be on the surface.

“That’s the thing about the invisible world, I guess. Where souls get battered and minds get muddled and hearts get broken again and again. It’s a war zone, a disaster area, but no one wants to talk about how messed up things are, so we let each other pretend. We play along, we act like we’re all okay. But we’re not okay. All the junk we’re hiding is right there, right in front of us, right within us. The brokenness, and the desolation and the despair. We tell ourselves it’ll get better if we just ignore it. But wounds don’t work that way. Leave them open, and you’ll bleed out.”

I won’t say much more about the plot because I don’t want to spoil it, except that the second half of the book was progressively better, it provided a more concrete insight in Jessa’s internal struggle without being tiring or repetitive, followed by some religious and philosophical questionings and I found the parallel reference to Dorian Gray brilliant.

“ A dragon is exactly what it feels like, my panic. Breathing fire in my gut.“

The author’s pen is very strong, her words have impact, they bruise; they’re acidic, they burn; they’re sharp, they cut, leaving behind them bruises, burns and scars to the reader’s soul similar to the ones Jessa pictures in other people’s faces. They are fitting to Jessa’s heightened emotions and her soul’s turmoil.

“Jessa, Marshal says, his eyes pulling at mine. Two fish hooks, trying to drug my insides out.”

But, at the same time, the author’s approach on the subject remains humane with a sensitivity that moved me very much. The change developed in Jessa’s mind after the realization that she’s not alone, both in her life and her mental struggle, was tangible and liberating.

“And it strikes me in this moment that Marshall was wrong. It’s not that we’re all broken inside. It’s that we’re not. Brokenness is just like beauty; it’s something we wear and carry, and if we let it define us, it will. But we are not our beauty or our brokenness, because souls are not made of beauty or brokenness. Souls are made of something permanent.
Souls are made of truth.”

All in all, a very important story, told in a unique, non-didactic way, that probes the reader to ponder over further. I would recommend it to EVERYONE who loves a good book that gives food to the mind.

The quotes above are from an arc and are subject to change upon publication.

This is the story of Jessa, a teen who suffers from severe anxiety and panic attacks. While she has learned to hide her anxiety much of the time, and the panic attacks have become less frequent, she really hasn't gotten "better". After discovering her boyfriend has been cheating on her at a party, Jessa leaves and ends up in a terrible car accident, leaving her as damaged on the outside as she is on the inside. In addition, she finds that she cannot form images in her mind, but she starts seeing injuries on other people's faces that aren't really there. She goes to live with her father for a fresh start and a change of scenery, where thanks to new friendships she slowly begins to heal and make sense of her strange symptoms.

I have very mixed feelings about this book. I found the premise very interesting, and in some ways Iiked the story very much, but there were some issues. Jessa was a sympathetic character, but so much of the story was spent in her head, and seemed a bit cold and detached. For me this wasn't really a problem, but I think some readers would get bored and lose interest without a little more dialogue and emotional responses to liven it up. I loved the character of Marshall; he breathed some much needed life and levity into the story. Without giving too much away, I thought the way Jessa's hallucinations were explained in the end was good, but I personally felt the story got bogged down with the heavy religious awakening and imagery at the end, that didn't seem to fit the tone of the rest of the story. Also the ending seemed to be just a bit rushed, with a lot happening in a very short time, while the story prior to that had moved very slowly. I would prefer the pace to be evened out just a little more.

I would recommend this book to readers that do not need a lot of action and dialogue to hold their interest, and enjoy books that are more psychological, philosphical, and introspective in nature, that have a character working through issues and feelings, on an emotional journey rather than a physical one.

All Things New is the story of Jessa, who manages to cover up her anxiety until one night when she discovers something heart-breaking and ends up in a tragic accident. What follows is Jessa trying to rebuild her life and get control over her anxiety. This one gets a mixed review from me: some parts I really loved and others I couldn't get on with at all. I'm going to start by getting my negatives out of the way. At times the pyschology around anxiety bordered on sounding like a text book and the dialogue at these moments felt stilted and unrealistic. My other main complaint is the angel storyline which I just couldn't get on with at all: I think I was hoping for something more realistic and sinister to wrap up that thread. I felt like, particularly towards the end, a lot of the plotlines were wrapped up quite quickly and not resolved satisfactorily: I wanted to know more. For the most part though, it was a great story and well written. I loved the idea of Jessa losing her mind's eye after her accident and that she saw other people's wounds on their faces (this is one of the lines I wish had been explored more). The novel has a strong opening and the descriptions of Jessa's life with anxiety are outstanding. I loved the way that anxiety was represented in the novel, and how this was amplified by being a first-person narrative. I loved the friendship between Jessa and Hannah, and her relationship with Martin and how these formed and developed as the story went on. I would have liked more detail of Hannah's struggle, as this was a fascinating and important side story and I felt that Jessa's own story overshadowed it a lot: I can see why this is, I just really wanted to know more about what Hannah was going through. I really struggled with the ending to the novel with angel story line. I just didn't find it believable enough, and that let the ending down for me. Overall though, this is an interesting read and I would recommend it for anyone looking to get an insight into living with anxiety.

This review will go live on my blog charlottesomewhere.wordpress.com on 28th July.

While Jessa is at a New-Year’s party, she finds out that her boyfriend has been cheating on her for months. After leaving the party in a hurry, she has a panic attack in her car and has an accident. The accident leaves her with scars on her face but also, she now sees things, like bruises, burns and scars that aren’t there, on other people’s faces. After her stay, in the hospital, she leaves Los Angeles where she lived with her mother to go live with her father in Colorado where she meets Hannah and Marshall.

Marshall was an interesting character and so was Hannah. I, however, hated Jessa. While her anxiety should have helped me identify with her, she was so judgemental and all over a pain in the ass, I simply could not. Being in her head was pretty uncomfortable…
Thankfully, I really loved Marshall, he was funny, kind and just adorable.

More than the problem with the main character, I’m still conflicted about this book. While the intrigue was interesting after a while, I really hated the way it was resolved. It felt like some christian pushing crap...

this book was a something a bit different for me and i devoured it. as somebody who suffers with anxiety and depression i could relate to the characters in this story. i could feel their pain and understand what they were going through. thank you to net galley, the publishers and the author for the chance to read and review this book

Jessa suffers from anxiety and the only thing that helps her cope (besides avoidance) is her boyfriend. Jessa's coping mechanisms are thrown out of the window, when she gets into a major car crash, which damages her brain. Jessa leaves her old life and its expectations to live with her father. She quickly befriends fraternal twins Hannah and Marshall. Hannah is working to get a piano scholarships to one of the most elite musical boarding schools in the country. Her stress levels are all over the place, but Jessa will continue to stick by her friend. Marshall has a hole in his heart, which he has had since birth. While he may have physical challenges, he doesn't let it impact his life. Jessa starts to develop feelings for Marshall, but has trouble letting anyone in. This becomes especially true when she starts seeing things on people's faces. Jessa doesn't know if it is because her anxiety is getting worse, a result of the car crash, or something else. It becoming harder and harder to hide what is going on, especially when she so wants to let Marshall and Hannah in.

I enjoy the way Miller interweaves the seemingly unreal with the real. I found Jessa's mental images of others compelling, though I can't believe that it took her so long to figure out what was going on. The relationship between Jessa and Marshall was sweet, but I feel like I didn't know Marshall well enough to really connect with him. In fact, I felt like I didn't know enough about any of the characters. They all seemed to be only developed on the surface, except for her father and potentially Dr. I. I did have trouble with the mixture of analogies, stick with bruises or stick with dragons, but both together make the narrative clunky. I enjoyed the framework of the story and the characters had potential, but I was not as wowed by this novel as I was by the previous ones I have read.

All New Things is a refreshing and honest look at what teenage anxiety, panic, and trauma looks like. As a School Counselor, I see these symptoms In my students every day and recognized what Jessa is experiencing as a realistic portrait of these dibilitating emotional issues. At times my heart wrenched for Jessa because I have experienced her symptoms myself and worked with teens who are in the midst of panic and anxiety. Sometimes, it was even a little too close to home.

The publisher did an excellent job of summarizing the book, so I don't need to do much of that myself. Overall, Jessa's journey of recovery from her car accident and the underlying anxiety she has been experiencing since her parents divorced was realistic and endearing. I cared about Jessa and wanted to see her face her fears and become resilient. I rooted for her to become well. I also enjoyed Jessa's friends, Hannah and Marshall, and their own journeys for wellness (physical and emotional). Jessa realizes towards the end of the book that we all have something, we are all fighting our own battles on the inside, but we have to face our fears in order to overcome them. This is something I have learned as an adult and is an excellent message for teens as well.

I will definitely recommend this book to my students. Many thanks to the publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for a review; it was a pleasure to read.

4 + stars

<i>"...perfect for fans of All the Bright Places and The Fault In Our Stars". </i>  Having noticed these words in the blurb for 'All Things New' by Lauren Miller I felt helpless to resist.    Afterall those two books are amongst my favourite YA titles.    What a wonderful discovery  it was to find out the blurb was correct.  All Things New was an excellent book.   It brought to the forefront the debilitating symptoms and effects of anxiety and other important mental health issues all of which were handled with the utmost care.  

Lauren Millers writing was extraordinarily realistic in her portrayal of experiencing a traumatic head injury.    17 year old Jessa has been involved in a serious car accident and is left feeling fog headed.  Everything is too bright,  sounds are too loud, the dizziness, unsteadiness on her feet, clutching at memories or words that are there but just out of reach, all of this resonated with me from personal experience.   Thankfully I have not experienced anxiety, or the other psychological issues which were front and centre in this book yet I had every faith that Ms Millers portrayal of these were equally realistic.   Jessa has suffered anxiety for some years now and her treatment, therapy & medication have all been unsuccessful.    Her coping strategy has been to suppress her feelings, practice avoidance and rely upon her beautiful exterior to hide the ugliness  and damage she feels inside.    Now with a heavily scarred face, her facade is broken and her anxiety is taking the upper hand.    After a terrifying change of school and with the help of her newfound friends Jessa learns some valuable lessons about facing up to her fears, about learning to trust, the importance of friendship, the life changing benefits of deciding to make behavioural changes, and of seeking and accepting help.   Lauren Millar delivered all of that without making her book sound or feel preachy. A wonderful accomplishment.

This new-to-me author has delivered what felt like a very important coming of age story.   All themes were handled delicately and worked beautifully imo.    I'm particularly interested in hearing thoughts from others, especially those who have experienced anxiety up close and personal, to understand if Lauren Millers portrayals were as realistic as they felt.

My sincere thanks go to the author, to Three Saints Press and to NetGalley for the opportunity of reading this free digital ARC in exchange for my unbiased review

This was a phenomenal book! I really identified with Jessa as I myself suffer from panic disorder. I thought this was a great book for young adults and if the students that I taught were older I would definitely suggest this book.

Marshall's character is very well-written and an absolute love! The rest of the book doesn't really step up to that: I didn't get to care about Jessa's troubles, whether Hannah was a very important character for me and it threw me off that I didn't get to know what happened with her big audition. Overall, not a bad read, but needs major editing-work to be as good as it can be. Thumbs up for featuring a character with scars on her face, thumbs down for it having nothing to do with how the rest of the characters treated her, but just how she treated herself (quotes and quotes of self-deprecation coming your way). I wouldn't pick this book up again.

I really enjoyed reading All Things New, even more than I thought I would. Through Netgalley, just browsing through their library, I was attracted to this book, by its beautiful cover and interesting enough title, but the synopsis made me feel as though I could really be able to empathize with the MC, Jessa, because of her anxiety, although mine isn't nearly as strong as hers is.

The author's writing was fairly good, or at least I didn't find myself constantly stopping and noting word choices or formatting, because I do tend to do that quite a bit. I loved that I was engrossed into all that was going on enough that I didn't feel the need to analyze.

Jessa's character, imperfect as it is, is incredibly relatable to me, but now, thinking about it, she had a lot of anger within her, which really affected the way she acted and responded to everything that went on. To a reader, this anger could definitely seem non-relatable, especially seeing as Jessa had a lot of hurt within her, the kind that really isn't something one would see too often. I suppose that the teenage angst coupled with a few more scars might make her a tad infuriating to someone that doesn't understand the slightest, but hey, this is a YA book right? And a heck of a YA book.

Her growth made me proud of her, because she really did grow in terms of strength and awareness, and it was a believable development as well, since she went through quite a lot over the course of the book.

The other characters had their own issues, and I wish that the author could've developed some of them more, because Hannah's problems were truly concerning and I think they were sort of downplayed or downgraded to just a suspicious issue to shake up her and the MC's friendship. Marshall was a really adorable character and he seemed a little too perfect personality-wise, if you know what I mean. I also REALLY liked Ayo and would've liked for him to have a larger part in the storyline, but it's fine the way it is.

Okay, one of the themes, per se, was kind of confusing and seemed like it was unnecessary, and I'm talking about the "angels" concept. The MC freaking saw an angel who came off to me as a mugger when he first appeared in the book because he reached for her wallet when she was halfway to death after her car crash. That's messed up. Then, he was a step-in school psychologist and somehow managed to have multiple appointments with her before she found out that he wasn't the actual therapist and there's just so many plot holes with that. Did she just wind up hallucinating things to make up for everything? And that's not even mentioning the fact that the psychologist supposedly forced meds on other students which is wrong in so many ways and Jessa just kept talking to her angel who she assumed was the doctor even though she knew that he was potentially the guy that prescribed her friend ADD medicine despite her lack of ADD. Yeah, that's messed up.

Regardless of the somewhat concerning angel thing going on, because of the underlying anxiety theme, All Things New really resonated within me, made me contemplative, and helped me in ways that I didn't think it would. Anxiety is a major mental illness, and the peek into Jessa's thought processes through her inner dialogue was one of the highlights of my reading process.

My gratitude to Three Saints Press and Netgalley for this great read!

This book was awesome!! I could totally relate to the main character, and her friends. I almost felt an instant connection with her. She went through something so tragic near the beginning of the book it almost takes you with her and forms a bond throughout the book that you have to finish in its entirety to understand everything that has happened. And it started way before that day. Layers upon layers are in this stunning book!!

I received an advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review.