*I received this ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Well first off, I'm not religious despite my upbringing, so initially I was feeling pretty wary about this book. And sure, religion is spoken about literally all the time. It was the things around the religious talk that was interesting for me. The main character can be annoying, and I feel like certain parts of the storyline were only half explained, but overall I quite enjoyed this read. I think the Lucy-Jones relationship was very cute. I just think that the story ended really oddly and suddenly? I expected more than the 'your mum is going into the ICU and your dad is freaking out the end'. like what? Idk very unfulfilled in that aspect.

[Review has yet to be published on my blog & Goodreads!]
In The Names They Gave Us we meet the Christian teen Lucy Hansson. Lucy was ready for the perfect summer with her boyfriend, working at the summer camp her parents own.
But when Lucy’s mom cancer comes back, the summer is far from perfect. It is like Lucy’s life is falling apart. Her boyfriend pauses their relationship and Lucy’s mom wants her to be a counselor at a different camp. Which means she is not able to see and help her mom daily while she is going thru chemo. But to make her mom happy, Lucy decides to go the other camp, the one for ‘troubled’ teens.
While Lucy tries to get used to this new life, it gets turned upside down once again when Lucy develops a crush and discovers long-hidden family secrets….

When I started reading this book, I wasn’t able to put it down. I actually read this book in one sitting, and that has been ages ago since I did something like that. But this book was too good to put down!

This book deals with so many issues at once, which just makes this book incredible to read. I guess the hardest thing to read, was how someone started doubting their own belief. Mostly because that is not something you give up on easily.

Emery Lord’s writing style is sooo amazing! It made me laugh at the right moment, but also made me tear up at other moments.

When picking this book up, be aware that once you start reading, stopping because the hardest part. You just want to know how Lucy is doing, how she is handling certain situations and you just want to make sure she is okay.
This book also deals with stereotypes, this time about those who are Christian. The book makes strong points about it. That, even though someone who didn’t follow the rules of their belief is still someone who deserves help. No matter what you have done. And we need more people like that on this world.

I highly recommend this book, just keep tissues somewhere closeby while reading!

I ended up giving the book 5 stars!

So good! My favourite book that Emery Lord has written so far!

I received a copy from Netgalley.

I had pre ordered this one ages ago, but I have a habit of pre ordering finished copies of Emery Lord books and requesting them on Netgalley as soon as I see them. Usually I start them as soon as I’m approved, but in this case it took me a while to get round to starting this one. Mainly because of the subjects it dealt with – faith and cancer.

While it took me a while to get into the novel, by the end I did love it to pieces, and as with every Emery Lord book I’ve read by the end I was in floods of tears. Beautifully written, and I thought it handled the tough subjects excellently. A+ points for diverse characters, transgender rep and friendships as well. The characters were fantastic and well fleshed out. The romance was adorable. The adults were likeable as well.

The novel tells the story of teenager Lucy who has learned that her mother’s cancer has returned. Lucy’s dad is a pastor, she’s very religious. She has a great relationship with her parents, she has a steady boyfriend of several years Lucas. Though on receiving the news, she falls to pieces. She starts to question her faith. It’s all handled very thoughtfully and manages to do it without being preachy at all. So bonus points for that.

Lucy’s parents run a Christian themed summer camp and she usually helps out as a councillor, but her mom convinces her to try being a councillor at the camp the other side of the lake, Daybreak. Which is a camp helping troubled children. Her mom thinks this may help Lucy deal with some of her own issue. She’s in pieces in private, but determined to put on a strong face around her parents. Though she’s acting out and getting overly amorous with the boyfriend. The boyfriend was also very religious and frankly, a bit of a dick. He was trying to be patient and understanding, but it didn’t come across very well – then – he puts their relationship ON PAUSE over the summer. Jerk.

Lucy is a bit reluctant to try Daybreak, she just wants to be with her mom. But she finds herself getting to know the other councillors her age, and dealing with the children, from all sorts of different backgrounds with all sorts of problems. As much as I liked Lucy and her voice I did find her to be kind of sheltered, maybe something to do with her deep religious beliefs. One of the kids, a girl of 14 is pregnant, and Lucy is quite shocked by this. She turns out to really connect to the girl and help her a lot.

Lucy makes friends in the camp, though the other councillors have known each other for years, she struggles to find her way into the close group of close-knit friends. It’s very sweet as she learns to accept the other kids who they are, find things in common with them, and gets to know them. She finds herself attracted one of the councillors her age, a boy named Henry. They bond and develop a close friendship with the potential for something more. Lucy has to figure out if she really wants to make the relationship with Lucas work, or go for something new with Henry. It works really well and adds a lot of depth to Lucy’s character as she struggles to make her decisions.

Lucy has to deal with a lot of different emotions and manages to handle them extremely well. She has her moments where she does fall apart. I did find I really liked her views on her struggle with her faith as well. A lot of it made a great deal of sense as she pondered it out. And there really were some beautiful passages on faith towards the end of the novel.

Tough subjects, but well worth reading.

I loved it.

Thank you Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for approving my request to view the title.

I just started reading Emery Lord last year and she has gradually become an auto-buy author for me. She has such a way with words and characters that each book is utterly unputadownable. This story does deal with tough subjects such as cancer and religion, (I know what you're thinking - ugh cancer, ugh religion - no thanks) but don't let that scare you off! If you've read any of Lord's previous work then you know that the hard subjects are what she excels at. Cancer stories hit a little too close to home for me but I can assure you that Emery Lord handles every topic with respect.

Lucy is a Christian and daughter of a pastor so Religion plays a huge part of the book, yes, but it's not in a bad way at all like you may think. Lucy has her beliefs and sticks to them but she's not judgmental towards anyone else's nor does she push her religion on others. She is open minded, loving, and accepting. Though, that's not to mean that she is perfect, far from it.

In The Names They Gave Us you will explore a girl who begins to question her faith.

"For the first time in my life, I consider that I am being looked down on by no one, by nothing."

A camp for troubled kids, with a group of counselors all carrying around their own heavy baggage. A huge array of diverse characters. Failing in love. Grief - how to deal with it and still live your life. And at the core of this story is family and friendships and finding your "herd".

"And I want to be one of them. I want to be one of them so, so badly -- to fit into this balance, their history, the wolf pack way of them."

Emery Lord never ceases to amaze me. She has a magical way of weaving words and creating flawed, complex characters that are entirely relatable. I loved every single one of these characters and that's no exaggeration.

Even though this book deals with a lot of heavy topics, there is still much fun to be had! Highly recommend this for your summer reading.

Full review available on my blog and Goodreads (linked below) and also on Amazon.co.uk.

My thoughts

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this, as books that have religion (especially Christianity) as a central aspect aren’t really my thing. This, however, was very well-written and all of the topics are handled in a sensitive way. It definitely is a big part of the story, but not so much that it’s not enjoyable if you don’t relate to it (I don’t). This was the first book I’ve read from Emery Lord and I really liked her way of writing – it’s easy to read but not patronising, and it’s plot-driven but it doesn’t feel like anything is being used as a plot device that shouldn’t. This is a nice book to read during the summer. It’s equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming and overall it left me with a great sense of appreciation for my life and the people in it, which I believe is the main point of the book.

Pros

I appreciated the cast of characters – there are POC, including a couple of black counsellors, at Lucy’s camp, there are gay characters, there’s a trans girl, and a Jewish girl. I can’t speak for how good the rep is but it’s definitely inclusive, even of different religions and beliefs.

The romance is a nice subplot and it’s not too much, so it doesn’t overwhelm the main story. Sometimes in books like this, that deal with family tragedy, the romance is brought in to “fix” the main character’s problems and it ends up very unrealistic. This book didn’t do that – Lucy still had problems, but she built up a support network to help her deal with them.

The setting of this story is really beautiful – a summer camp by a lake, surrounded by woods. I love this kind of setting because I don’t often get to visit places like this, so reading about them is the next best thing.

Cons

I would have loved more backstory for some of the minor characters – Lucy has the least interesting history out of all the characters but it’s the main one we hear about. I would have liked to know more about Jones, Anna, Mohan, and Keely.

Final thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

Recommended for: This is a heartwarming novel about loss and growth and I recommend it if you’re a fan of YA contemporaries in general – this is a book that I think a lot of people will enjoy.

I loved this, I thought Lucy was a good character and I liked how all her beliefs were challenged and how unflinching it was about her mum's illness.

I won’t lie: my expectations weren’t all that high for this book. I read When We Collided recently and was disappointed but The Names They Gave Us, the new book from Emery Lord, resonated with me, in ways I wasn’t quite prepared for.

It’s about a girl called Lucy, she’s a Christian, heavily involved in her Church – her Dad is a pastor – and spends every summer at the Church camp her parents run. Her faith is a part of her, a deeply ingrained part of who she is and then her Mum gets diagnosed with cancer and her faith begins to waver and the book, basically, is an exploration of that: of faith, of the lack of it, of grief and loss and growing up.

& it’s good.

So, what particular chord did it strike with you Josephine, I hear you ask. Well. Ain't that the question, and I'll try to answer without being all ME ME ME, but because it impacted on my experience of the story and feels kind of relevant. So. 15 years ago I would have classed myself as religious. Now, not so much. Back then, I went to Church every Sunday, of my own volition; my Dad isn’t particularly religious and my Mum, although she doesn’t go to Meeting, is a Quaker. Church was my thing. My place. Being a teenager wasn’t my favourite experience for a lot of reasons and Church was a place I could leave all that behind. A group of people that seemed to accept me with no questions. It was a fellowship I guess in the truest sense of the word. & I believed. I did. God was there for me and I loved Him. I chose to get baptised as a teenager, and then confirmed and my faith felt unwavering, like it would always be, like a constant. Like breathing.

Then, when I was 22 my partner died. He had cancer and it was shit and horrible and awful and it changed me. It changed me I think in lots of subtle ways that I am only just starting to realise now but most significantly at the time and most obviously (to me at least) it knocked my faith. It’s not that I instantly stopped believing in God, more that I was really fucking angry with Him, because why? WHY? I’d been good and I’d done the things he wanted and I had prayed, I had prayed so hard and John had died anyway and where the fuck was the justice in that, and if God was the kind of God that could pull that kind of a stunt, well I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of Him. I went to Church a few weeks after it all happened and I sat at the front with my pals and the guy leading the prayers, he prayed for me. I cried. I cried because I was sad, and I cried because once upon a time that would have helped and now all of a sudden I just felt hollow, like there was this void where my faith used to be and then he prayed for my tears and I just sat there thinking ‘why am I even here?’

& it doesn’t work like that for everybody, I know that: a lot of people find their faith strengthened by loss and that’s brilliant, but mine wasn’t and that truth is something I haven’t thought about for a long long time. It surprised me actually, the almost visceral reaction I got to Lucy’s story when I read this book. That ‘yes, I get that.’ It’s weird when you realise that something you thought was perhaps isn’t and I really felt for Lucy because yak.

So there’s that element: faith, which is really well done actually, Lucy’s anger at God, her struggle to feel removed from something that has been a key part of who she is her entire life, her religious upbringing, all of it. It’s very well done and I liked it also because it’s different. Religion like that isn’t a thing that you see all that often in contemporary novels and I liked that it was tackled here: this story felt like something new, you know? It was really well pitched as well, never for a moment crossing over into preachy.

Then there’s the other stuff – the fact that Lucy’s Mom is sick and her boyfriend has dumped her – or rather he’s paused their relationship because he’s apparently an asshat - and she’s been sent to what she always called ‘the hippie camp’ instead of her own Church camp for the summer where she knows nobody and has no idea where to fit in. She’s got a lot going on this kid, and it all felt really honest and real and relatable to. The story felt real, Lucy felt real, all the characters felt real. Seriously, this book is such a far cry from When We Collided that I actually would not be surprised if I realised I’d made a mistake and they weren’t actually written by the same person.

There’s diversity which we all want to see more of in all the books we read: a trans character whose story is handled delicately and sensitively and several POC characters - an excellent exchange actally between Lucy and one of the other counsellors (surely I don’t have to tell you not all black people are related) and I really liked how none of this felt like Lord was working her way down a tick box (LQBT, done; race, cracked it) it felt genuine and the interactions felt genuine to, not too perfect, not too text book, but sort of honest somehow. It would be nice to see that diversity more often and I hate that it’s still a thing we feel we need to comment on instead of just a thing that just is. Regardless, Lord hits the mark more than a lot of other people out there.

There’s a romance, because isn’t there pretty much always a romance but it’s one that’s so far removed from the one in When We Collided that made me want to throw the book against the wall that I wanted to punch the air ‘YOU NAILED IT EMERY’ and a whole lot of delicious self discovery and lots of talk about food (which was also the same in When We Collided and which I liked then also, and I liked the whole thing a whole lot. There’s a lot of love in this book – friendly love, romantic love, familial love, and perhaps that’s part of the reason it worked better for me, that the romance meanders nicely alongside the rest of the story rather than being primarily A Love Story, I don’t know.

What did I not like? The ending. I am still aggravated by that days later and also I saw the plot twist coming about seven million miles off (but that might because I am like plot twist Poirot) but overall, I liked this. I’m glad I gave Lord another chance. S’worth your time this book. It’s nice. Also they eat cookies at camp in the first week, chocolate chip, oatmeal and crisps. I WANT ME SOME OF THOSE COOKIES.

'And I say a final prayer, this one in gratitude that there are people who will protect kids with a fire that makes them sprint after cars, fight systems, curse with rage.
It’s enough to make you believe.
Maybe not in symbols; maybe not in gods. But certainly in people.'


This is lovely and heart-breaking and utterly wonderful, all at once. The Names They Gave Us surprised me, something that has happened a few times recently with contemporary young adult novels – it is an incredibly well written story about a girl coming to grips with her mother’s cancer returning, with her faith and what it truly means, and with her perception of people. It deals with grief, all kinds of abuse and suffering, the meaning of faith, and love, all with sensitivity amidst the harsh reality of those situations, and places importance of the power of love, of caring, of acceptance, and it moved me greatly – much more than I expected. The power of the story crept up on me slowly, and it was only once I was half way through that I realised just how invested I was in the lives of the characters.

The story follows Lucy, whose life turns upside down when her mother’s cancer returns, her boyfriend ‘pauses’ their relationship, and her mother suggests she go to Daybreak, a camp for troubled kids, rather than their bible camp, for the summer. Her ordered world becomes chaos and she struggles massively with anxiety over her mother, confusion over her relationship, and fear over being at Daybreak, all the while questioning the faith that has inherently been a part of her life. I found it so fascinating seeing how Lucy dealt with everything as the novel progressed; nothing comes easy and she struggled massively to cope, but she keeps trying, and soon begins to realise that life, relationships, and religion, aren’t as black and white as she once thought. Her character development is tremendous and I became really invested in how she dealt with her faith – I’m not religious at all but I loved the way she explored her own faith and the things that she discovered along the way.

'“Whose empire did you just overthrow?”
My own.'

The entire story and the characters that make it are brilliant. Lord has covered so many important and deep subjects in such an accessible way that you don’t need to have experienced trauma, grief, breakups, or floundering faith, you don’t need to have visited a summer camp or been consumed with worry for your mother’s mortality – it’s about people, it’s about friendships and love, and being comfortable with who you are and the things that have defined you, and that is something incredible. I imagine, though, that everyone could find something to relate to within this book, I know that Lucy’s feelings and worries about her mother did for me. I’m not sure there’s anything negative I could write about The Names They Gave Us, it has its own unique magic and I can’t recommend it enough – it has everything you would want from a novel and more, and it kept me feeling every emotion until the very end. And those last three pages? They are something else entirely.

'I believe in nature, in science, in jazz, in dancing.
And I believe in people. In their resilience, in their goodness.
This is my credo; this is my hymn. Maybe it's not good enough for heaven, and maybe I'm even wrong. But if I can walk through the fire and, with blistered skin, still have faith in better days? I have to believe that's good enough.'

When you read an Emery Lord book you know you're in for an excellent read and I cannot dispute the brilliance of this book. It is the perfect summer read even for those of us who didn't go to summer camp. It just brings up those feelings of summer and how so much seems to change and yet stay the same.

I really like Lucy and how she was a character many can relate to. She has been the good girl her entire life and it's not exactly been a hardship for her. She's liked being good and respected by her parents so when her mother's cancer returns and her parents ask her to go to the hippy summer camp across the lake from their church one she feels hurt and angry and doesn't quite know what is happening in her life. She's struggling to come to terms with the fact she may lose her mother in this second battle with cancer and she's learning that everything she thought she knew may not be entirely true. It's a feeling many of us know and when you add in her struggle with her faith then you have an interesting read.

I really liked the religious element of the book. Lucy was in many ways far more naive than many teenagers as she hasnt had sex or gone to the usual raging high school parties but that made me like her more. Many people can relate to that, though. And the fact that she was struggling to reconcile her faith under the circumstances was great because religion isn't featured too often in books. Not in this way. I mean I'm not religious but I could relate to her struggles because the struggles of all teens figuring out who they are.

I think the reason I didn't rate this 5 stars is the fact that I kind of wanted more which sounds harsh, doesn't it? I just wanted and expected a few more realisations and the discoveries at the end were fantastic but I felt like they were rushed in and I'd figured out some of it already. I feel like they could have been revealed sooner and then they could have been explored more in depth and we could fully have seen how this affected Lucy's own choices

In the end, there can never be any doubt that I enjoyed it because I did and it was definitely a favourite but I feel liked it missed taking advantage of some of the plot points but that's just me.

Seriously, look that beautiful, beautiful cover. A round of applause to whoever made that cover, because not only is it pretty, but it actually has some relevance to the contents of the novel. I like the US cover as well, but I feel like the UK cover seriously nails things.

Anyway, moving on to the contents on the novel. I have to admit, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I have Emery Lord's previous novels. Objectively, it was an excellent novel, but I think the most likely thing that made me rate it only a "liked it" rating was because it focused too much on religion. And to be honest, religion is a bit of a turn off for me in contemporary novels. I suppose I did appreciate how in The Names They Gave Us, the story didn't try and force Christianity on everyone, but when there are mentions and sinning and praying and all that, it just breaks the start of the connection I might have made with the main character. To be honest, if there was less focus on faith, I have no doubt that this book would have been rated higher. It was just a personal thing that prevented me from fully enjoying the novel.

Lucy meets a diverse range of people at the summer camp for "troubled kids", and I found that I was quite interested in the various backstories of these other characters. They were all developed quite well within the length constraints of the novel, and had factors that pulled me into the story. In addition, despite not being able to connect with the main character as much as I have in Lord's previous novels, Lucy was still quite a likeable and realistically developed character in herself. The romance was quite adorable, and there were certain scenes that had me smiling to myself.

Overall, quite a well written novel, although there were factors that kept me personally from fully enjoying the book.

Ratings
Overall: 8/10
Plot: 4/5
Romance: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Cover: 5/5

Lucy is ready for the perfect summer at Bible camp with her family and respectful boyfriend. But after her mothers cancer returns, she suggest she experience something different, and Lucy becomes a helper at a progressive camp across the lake instead. So begins a journey of self discovery and the airing out of some family secrets. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; I was immediately taken with the characters, particularly those at camp Daybreak. Although religion plays a big part in the book, the reader is never preached to and Lucy is open to new ideas and is accepting of others. Other themes include sexuality, forgiveness, family, abuse, love but all are dealt with sensitively. I was sad to come to the end really as I'd grown to love the core characters, I knew I'd miss them!

Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Christian fiction so The Names They Gave Us might resonate more with someone who likes that kind of thing, I don't know. I thought I should give this book a chance as When We Collided was excellent. From the first few chapters, it showed promise. Lucy is the daughter of a pastor and her boyfriend is strict with his beliefs, their relationship is very chaste but this is alright by Lucy. When her mother's cancer come back, he does that thing I'm suspect everyone must hate, when they say it must be what God wants and to trust in Him. Fortunately even Lucy is annoyed with this when she just wants to be angry and comforted.

So I thought it might be about her doubting her faith in the face of tragedy, but the plot just limps along like a three legged tortoise. There are just too many threads and none of them fully developed. She usually spends summer with her parents at church camp but this year her mother wants her to do something different, to go to the "hippy camp" across the lake, where Lucy is sure they are all heathens. She is pretty judgy at the start.

I like summer camp stories but this part was just a bit boring. It goes from one camp activity to the next without tension or action. The camp is for kids who have problems, and the book goes through a ticky box process of including as much as possible but only superficially. There's the trans girl, the pregnant teen and the black girl who makes Lucy realise her white privilege in a single sentence. It's revealed that Luce's mother was fostered so she feels she can relate to those kids. Hrm.

Some of the writing is lovely but it's just strung together without any substantial plot. Lucy has a secret YouTube beauty channel which doesn't serve much purpose other than being able to bond with others by doing their make-up. Through all her interactions Lucy learns a lot of life lessons, that maybe good relationships aren't perfect, having friends is a good thing and that she has been lucky to have two parents who love her so much.

Whilst it was moving towards the end, the actual ending was abrupt. I know life doesn't have neat endings but did it really need to end there? I just expected better from Emery.

Lucy has a perfect life. She has her perfect summer planned. Then her boyfriend suggests they 'take a break' and she learns her mother's cancer has returned.
We follow Lucy during her summer working at a camp. We watch her developing as a person as she finds herself and adjusts to her changing life.

Admitting time: I didn't read the summary of this title. I knew Lord from her 2015 book "The start of you and me" and liked that one, as well as this beautiful cover here. Emery Lord is a name that I stock in store, nomatter what subject, so I liked to know what it was about.
Admitting time Nr2: I should have read the summary. I am really sorry, while being grateful to be granted to read an advance copy. This is not my cup of tea. Right in the first chapter the word "bible" stuck out to me and after some research on Goodreads I have to admit ( Nr3) that I have to much to read for spending time wasting on this title. Religion is a trigger subject for me.
I'm sure this title will find its audiance, sadly it's not me. I did not finish this.

This was a beautiful, beautiful book. At first the Christianity put me off a bit, even though I understood it and how important it was. Lucy grew up her entire life with Christianity and her relationship with god being a huge part of her identity. But the beauty of it was that as she felt disconnected from her faith, she started to explore the sides of her personality that she's never looked into. At the start, she defined herself too much as the pastor's daughter and it was good to see that fall away and be rebuilt in a way that allowed her to live her life more as she wanted without worrying so much about her parents' or god's approval.

I loved the friendship group at Daybreak. I loved Daybreak! It had such a sense of individuality and the realness that this sort of place have. The kind of atmosphere that you have to be part of to understand it all. The kids at the camp were so sweet as well, especially the little ones. It was interesting how not all the problems of the children were told, but it was obvious they were there for a reason.

This whole book was a fantastic story and I can't wait for Emery Lord's next book.

When Lucy's mother is diagnosed with cancer, for the second time, things start to change in her life. Instead of spending summer with her parents at a Christian camp Lucy is encouraged by her mother to take up a role as counsellor at a nearby camp for children from difficult situations (or, as Lucy describes it in her head, the hippie camp).

This is a lovely and sensitive book, with themes of friendship, the relationship between children and parents and becoming an adult. It's very evocative and excels in its portrayal of friendships, making them and living with the mistakes that friends inevitably make.

Also a really good portrayal of a mother- daughter relationship, and a book with plenty of depth.

I freely admit to a certain discomfort with religious elements in a novel, moreso if I feel like the writer has a proselytising agenda, but the character of Lucy and her religion was deftly handled.

I follow Emery Lord on Twitter, and she's amazing. I adore her. But so far, neither of her books have really grabbed me. I found this disappointing.

I have to admit, if I had know how much God would be involved in this book, I would never have requested it from Netgalley. As an agnostic verging on aetheist, I find Christian fiction puzzling and the faith element often distracting. However, having said that, I'm actually glad I did request it and read it. Perhaps because it's YA, perhaps because Lucy has something of a crisis of faith, and perhaps just because of Lord's talented writing, I found the whole story, God included, easy to digest and actually quite fascinating. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against people of faith, as long as they don't try to persuade me to subscribe, and Lucy's version gave me some hope and faith (ironically) that there are religious people out there who are also tolerant and understanding. I enjoyed following Lucy on her journey, from questioning her God and the other main tennets of her life, to discovering that there can be more to life and faith, it's not always black and white, and you can always learn from other people.