A Book Review of K.A. Holt’s ‘House Arrest’ (plus a look at what i’m reading)

Hello everyone!!! Isabelle Knight back here again after missing the previous MMGM due to ‘life-chaos and stress overload’, but I am backkk!!!!!! Life has been so hectic lately — I’ve been trying to find more novels-in-verse, organizing live events, and trying (and failing) to rebind two books into one. (The books are fine, don’t worry!)

But first off, some super exciting news! I am going to be doing a very special live reading of my middle-grade fantasy book, Enchantria: Guardian’s Heir on YouTube to celebrate Children’s Book Week (a whole week dedicated to kidlit and children’s literature!!! Yay!!!)! ^^ If you guys wanna know more, then please do check out all the details here! I cannot wait!!! And if any of you are interested, I would love to see y’all there!

Anyway, today, I am back here again with another book review, this time of a wonderful, beautiful, way-too-heartbreaking novel-in-verse that I just finished this morning and had to hold back tears about!!!! 🙂 And that book is…

House Arrest by K.A. Holt!!!!

As I’ve said, this book is a novel-in-verse! To be honest, I wasn’t expecting that at all, and I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the book to find that it was a novel-in-verse! I’ve been trying to find more novels-in-verse recently, since I just love how beautiful those books can be and how much emotion can really be packed into those few words!! This book has actually been on my TBR for quite some time, and I just kept seeing it pop up in my recommendations on Kindle!

So finally I caved and got the book, and oh my starry skies, it is amazing!!!! And it’s definitely become one of my favorite books of all time!!!!

House Arrest is basically about a boy named Timothy Davidson, and his life is, well, not going so great. His newly born baby brother (Levi) has a lot of medical issues and has problems with (I think. I’m afraid I don’t remember exactly since medical terms often elude me) his trachea and lungs. His family is really struggling, and one day, Timothy tries to steal a man’s wallet to pay for Levi’s medicine. It doesn’t go so well, and he’s caught and is now put under house arrest and needs to have a probation officer and all that. And the book really follows his journey while he’s under house arrest and is just really struggling with a lot of stuff.

I really, really love this book! I don’t normally read the gritter contemporary books, but this is definitely a book I love! The book is just so beautiful, and I just love the way how it’s able to pack so much emotion into so little words!

I really love how the characters feel really real and like they’re actual people, not just characters in the book. You can really see in this book how not everything’s just ‘black and white/good and evil’ and how things are a lot more complicated than just that. None of the characters are perfect and they’re all rather messy, and I feel like that is definitely how a lot of people actually are in real life! And I love that as you read the book, you start to really get a sense of all these different sides of the characters!

My favorite characters in this book were definitely Timothy, James, and Isa! Timothy just felt so real and flawed, and it was really great to just read this book and experience his life through his eyes and really hear all his thoughts! James starts off seeming like a really hard, tough probation officer, but then as you get deeper into the story, you can also see different sides of him – like the kind, generous sides and I really love that! Isa is just a super sweet character, and I love her! 🙂

The plot was also amazing, and I actually love the ending of the book! I won’t spoil anything, but it’s the kind of ending that doesn’t leave things tied up with a neat little bow. And I know it might be odd for me to love an ending that doesn’t leave things tied up with a neat little bow, but to be honest, I do love books that do that – because a lot of the times in real life, things are never tied up with a neat little bow!

I also loved the author’s writing style! It’s always a bit hard describe writing style, but as you read the book, you can really see her style shine through, and I love that! I also love the way K.A. Holt manages to dive so deep into Timothy’s thoughts and emotions and really make the reader feel something without having to use as many words as you’d find in a usual prose novel!

I also really liked how the author manages to show us what Timothy’s life is like and have it feel so real! That is definitely something I struggle with in writing contemporary (I had a WIP that was contemporary but er…. it didn’t go well), and I am always very much impressed whenever people manage to pull that off!

Another thing I like is how the book is character-driven! For some reason, I always love reading character-driven stories because they let me inside the characters’ head and hearts and they let me experience the world through their eyes and really grow and change with them! Well, not to say that plot driven books aren’t good too, since those are amazing too!! I always like books with a good mix of plot and character drive!

But yeah! Overall, this is a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it to fans of middle-grade contemporary books that are gritter/more realistic! I also recommend it to fans of free-verse and those who are looking for a grittier book with a real, flawed, and messy main character!!!

And of course, I promised that I’d share with you what I’m currently reading, so here they are!!!

I recently finished this wonderful book by Russell J Fellows!!! It is a middle-grade fantasy, and I love it!!! Such magical worldbuilding, vivid characters, and it was such fun to read!! ^^

The Summer of June by Jamie Sumner!!! I actually already finished reading it, and it is a fantastic book!!! Very sweet and heartwarming, and it follows a girl with anxiety! I highly recommend it!!

The Potion Experiment by Elle McFadzean! Re-reading this middle-grade fantasy for possibly the 3rd or 4th time, and it is still every bit as wonderful as it was when I first read it!!! Amazing writing, super fun plot, wonderful characters, and great dialogue! A must-read for any middle-grader!!!

So yeah! Those are the books I’ve been reading recently! Anyway, that’s all I have for this blog! Thank you so much for coming, I hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope you’ll check out all those amazing, fantastic books!! And if you want to check out more book reviews, do head on over to Marvelous Middle Grade Monday where Greg and several other book bloggers share fantastic middle-grade book recommendations!!

Isabelle