I received this book from Edelweiss/publisher in exchange of an honest review.

I have quite hyped about this book for some time. Imagine my delight when I was chosen to participate in the blog tour + I got an ecopy of the book to read. This book feels like it will hit quite close home for me. A girl with tons of allergies, from food to animals to plants/pollen. There are enough non-fiction books about allergies, but there are not so many books for either children or adults featuring an MC with allergies in fiction setting.

I remember being a kid and classmates and friends having pets in all sorts of forms (which didn’t make visiting them easy), in the meantime my first pet was for years fishes. After that I tried hamsters and mice, which made my allergies flare up (some times more than others), but I just wanted something that I could also play with and cuddle with. These days I have hamsters and yes, my allergies flare up at times, feeling itchy, out of breath, sneezing, and more, but is it worth it? Yes. I got some cute babies, and I will take the consequences. My favourite pet, cats, well never going to happen, with medicines and all that I feel crappy but I can live, but medicines won’t save me 100% of the time. And riding a horse, something I have always wanted since I was a kid. Never going to happen. Not only the horse would give allergies, but also the dust of the place it stays in, the hay, and other things. 🙁 I thankfully later found out that my allergy for dogs is way less than for instance cats, so if I wanted I could get a dog… I am still not 100% about that given that I get reactions to my hamsters. Haha, but maybe I will just go for it. Thankfully, I got a husband so he could do some chores that may trigger allergies (like brushing). And now let’s go to my review for the book. I just wanted to add something personal to the book since it hits so close home.

My lord, I cannot imagine finding out the day you get a dog that you have allergies! OMG, that poor girl. I wonder how she never came into contact with other animals, dogs especially, so many people got dogs after all. I mean, my allergies have been found out quite early, so I was quite surprised she was 10 and didn’t know about them. But my heart just broke seeing her get the same reaction as I did to a lot of animals, I could really feel her pain. 🙁 And then came the test, poor thing was hoping so hard.. 🙁

We see her go on pet quests, yep, this girl is not so quick on giving up a life with pets. I love seeing her list, though the quest made me sad given how things went. But I was proud that she kept trying and I loved the animals on her list!

I didn’t even know about allergy shots! I am reading up on that as I was curious about this shot, and apparently generally here it is just stated to avoid animals/sources of allergy, take meds (pills, eye drops, nose spray). Which sounds indeed like the advice I have gotten throughout my life. I never gotten the offer for shots or heard about shots to lessen allergies. Reading some more, it seems apparently they don’t give shots easily because it can cause a lot of side effects and doesn’t always work correctly. OH, and since I have asthma I cannot even get the shots/immunotherapy stuff. OK. Well, I guess that makes sense. Well, so I learned something new in allergy land thanks to this book. I think it is interesting that in the US they just give shots, while here they don’t do that so easily.

I liked how she made friends with two people, OK, Claire I had some issues with but for most she was a good character.

I found Claire quite rude and hurtful at points in the book. HELLO? You new friend tells you about her allergy. Yes, she is getting shots, but from what I see it doesn’t mean it is instantly cured. And it won’t even cure everything, it just makes you less allergic/makes your body get used to things. Seriously. I get these are kids, but hello, a bit of research or even empathy and you would have understood why Maggie is so angry and hurt. Plus, how would you feel if you know you CAN’T have a dog, confide in your friend about it, and she just gets a dog like it is normal. Would you be happy? Later on she finally understood and she became a much better character. Um, sorry? In the US you can just buy a pet even though you are a minor? WTF? Also mice need to have a friend. They get lonely. I was pretty angry at Maggie. I get that she wants a pet, oh yes I understand given I have been through the same, but this? This is just bad and made me very pissed off. Again, I get she is a kid, but I found it highly irresponsible and I wondered why her parents didn’t just go into her room to check for things, privacy be damned. Not to mention, due to this her allergy therapy was changed… WTF? I just wanted to flip some tables. I am sorry, again, I get her feelings, I understand she wants a pet, but this just didn’t make me happy. Not at all. God.

Why did the teacher do that? I mean it is in her freaking file? I thought in America they were so hyped about that sort of thing? I mean from what I see in other books/tv shows/etc., so this was just weird. Plus, it made her class not like her, which just had me feeling angry and also sad. It is not her fault she is allergic, the teacher should have handled that WAY better.

But the rest of the book made me smile! I really loved those last pages after that dramarama. Those were cute, hopeful, fun, and oh my gosh Maggie’s baby sibling is adorable!

The art was really pretty and I love how, despite not all the pages have dialogue or text, you could easily see the story and all that happened on the pages. The illustrations tell the story perfectly.

All in all, despite some frustrations, I loved reading this book and I would definitely recommend it to people with allergies or those interested in allergies. I am glad that we are getting books about allergies that aren’t 100% non-fiction or close to that number.