Book Club – Erina Dominick

I chose to read Counting by 7’s by Holly Goldberg Sloan. I have to admit that I wasn’t immediately wooed by Willow Chance. When I got the book in the mail, I tried to read a few pages of the book but it was a little slow and I wasn’t interested enough to keep reading. By the time I picked it up again, I had to re-read the first few pages over to remember what was going on and I was still too bored to continue reading past the first few pages. I thought that Willow was unrealistic, naive and way too socially awkward. Honestly, I was only inspired by the book when I was forced to read it. A few chapters in, I realized that I have a lot in common with Willow. Certainly not her genius, but the inability to read some social cues, make lasting connections, and an interest in a wide variety of areas.

Counting by 7’s is full of important lessons and interesting facts and rich characters. I enjoyed the juxtaposition between Willow’s realization that people do not fit in neat groups and continuing to find Dell starting his organizational scheme based on titles such as “misfit” or “weirdo”. While some  parts of the story were clearly not based on the way things happen in real life, like the process that Willow was adopted, etc., but I learned quite a few things from the story. I learned that dehydration can cause fatigue, sunflowers only bloom for about a week, and that helium filled balloons end up in rivers and streams and are generally quite bad for the environment.

I think Sloan was trying to get people to think about loss and how something catastrophic can signal the start of something fresh. Other topics that are important in the book include acceptance, understanding and love. Overall, I learned to accept Willow, I started to understand her, and then I loved her.