A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby
Safiya and her mum have never seen eye to eye. Her mum doesn’t understand Safiya’s love of gaming and Safiya doesn’t think they have anything in common. As Safiya struggles to fit in at school she wonders if her mum wishes she was more like her confident best friend Elle. But then her mum falls into a coma and, when Safiya waits by her bedside, she finds herself in a strange alternative world that looks a bit like one of her games. And there’s a rebellious teenage girl, with a secret, who looks suspiciously familiar . . .
Rating: 
This wasn’t a gift from a publisher, but rather a hand me down from Stephanie Burgis, which I ended up lending around before I read it.
I seem to have a penchant for stories about grief. And of hope. A Pocketful of Stars is a bit of both (or rather quite a lot). Safiya is struggling to get along with her mum, who to her doesn’t seem to understand what she likes, and instead is pushing her to do what ehr mum wants.
But after a bad argument, a week later her mum is in a coma and Safiya is double guessing herself. The classic “if I hadn’t done x, this wouldn’t have happened and if I had done y it would’ve been okay”. And part of it is because her being the daughter may not know what medical condition her mum has or anything.
Somehow, this whole if this and that starts a “game”. Into a quest of dinign items that trigger memories of a young woman in a similar mind space and situation as Safiya and her mum. It becomes a race for Safiya, a lot of superstition and a lot of gaming, of trying to find the best, as maybe it will revert what happened to her mum and wake her from the coma.
At the same time, Safiya’s best friend “grows” up a little quicker than Safiya is comfortable with. Not in the sense of her not wanting to grow up, but rahter her friend being immature and calling it “growing up” (when you’re an adult you cringe about this type of attittude but we all did some kind of thing attempting to be more grown up and actually acting very childish).
It was an interesting story, I was intrigued, however it is a story laced with grief and emotional growth. And as such it talks about death, illness and a coma. So read when you’re in a mood that you can cope with the theme of it.
