Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe Review

     Recently, I read a story called Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe by Jo Watson Hackl, and here is a short summary of the book.

    The main character of this novel is Cricket, a girl whose mother ran away from her family due to stress, and some other causes. To make things even worse, her father died as well. At the beginning of the story, it describes her going to the store with her aunt, to pick up things for the family barbeque. But her aunt accidentally leaves her at the store, and she decides to leave the town and camp in the forest to look for her mother.

    Cricket has to follow clues given to her by her mother and find the room of mysterious birds that her mother always talked about. Her mother had wanted to find that room since she learned about it, and cricket thinks that's where she went. 

    I would recommend this book to people who like realistic fiction with a tinge of magical elements added in because most of the story could happen in real life, but specific parts like the bird room obviously can't. It was a pretty normal level read for middle to high schoolers, and it was pretty hard to put it down after I started reading. 

    I would give this book a 7 out of 10. I took away three points form the book because, at points, the mystery-solving got a little bit dry and repetitive. But apart from that, it was a lot of fun to read, and I definitely want to read more books like it.