The Shape of Thunder

Jasmine Warga — 2021

An extraordinary new novel from Jasmine Warga, Newbery Honor–winning author of Other Words for Home, about loss and healing—and how friendship can be magical. Cora hasn’t spoken to her best friend, Quinn, in a year. Despite living next door to each other, they exist in separate worlds of grief. Cora is still grappling with the death of her beloved sister in a school shooting, and Quinn is carrying the guilt of what her brother did. On the day of Cora’s twelfth birthday, Quinn leaves a box on her doorstep with a note. She has decided that the only way to fix things is to go back in time to the moment before her brother changed all their lives forever—and stop him. In spite of herself, Cora wants to believe. And so the two former friends begin working together to open a wormhole in the fabric of the universe. But as they attempt to unravel the mysteries of time travel to save their siblings, they learn that the magic of their friendship may actually be the key to saving themselves. The Shape of Thunder is a deeply moving story, told with exceptional grace, about friendship and loss—and how believing in impossible things can help us heal.

Reviews

Carrington Kinslow@ctonreads

Aug 31, 2022

I struggled a bit with this rating because I almost wanted to give it 3 stars. I thought the writing was beautiful and it made me cry a few times, and that is what ultimately led me to add on a 4th star to my rating. Both main characters, Cora and Quinn, had really emotional character arcs that I thought were done very well. This is very mature while still being distinctly middle grade, and while this book is about a specific type of tragedy, it is still universal to grief as a whole. I loved the relationship between Cora and Quinn, especially from Quinn’s perspective, but I thought that the plot surrounding their relationship didn’t get resolved well enough. Specifically from Cora’s PoV. I think that she owed Quinn some major apologies but they just moved on like Cora hadn’t done very wrong things. I realize this is likely an opinion that not many readers would agree with, but it felt like Quinn’s grief was entirely overshadowed by Cora’s. Cora was very wrong to blame Quinn, and I know that letting go of that was part of her journey and a very reasonable product of the trauma she suffered. But she said very harsh things to Quinn and refused to recognize that Quinn was suffering greatly as well. Quinn deserved an apology from Cora and it was very unsatisfying to not get that and to see them just move past it. Cora got to have her grief come to somewhat of a conclusion whereas Quinn did not. It was just incomplete storytelling and character development, in my opinion. Also, Cora’s grandmother and one of her other friends, Mia, ruined some scenes for me. They were really unreasonable characters and a bit toxic to Cora and her healing. Overall, I thought this was great, but could’ve been better.