Self-help ✦ Penny’s Take
Growing Young
Bridget E. Park · 2013
71/100
👍 Worth It
A fifteen-year-old writing honestly about finding her brother's body and surviving the grief that followed takes a kind of courage most adults would not attempt, and that authenticity is the book's strongest asset. The prose is unpolished — this is a self-published first effort — but grieving teenagers and the adults who love them will find something real here that more refined books cannot provide. Recommended with care for the right reader at the right moment.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: contains description of suicide (sibling's death by suicide) and discovery of body · parental preview recommended for younger or more vulnerable readers. We still scored it 71; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
📚 Buy the book ↗📱 Read on Kindle ↗🎧 Listen on Audible ↗ affiliate links · support the site, never the verdict
As an Amazon Associate and Audible affiliate, Penny earns from qualifying purchases. This never affects the verdict — see our affiliate disclosure.
Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
safety70
substance72
craft58
originality74
accuracy75
hype60
age-fit78
human-eye74
Penny’s verdict71
Cross-pollinate