Literary Titan Review

Neha Hewitt’s Cascadia’s Call is a heartfelt coming-of-age story about Ari, a fourteen-year-old girl uprooted from Boston after her father’s death and sent to live with relatives in Portland while her mother pursues a demanding journalism career. The novel moves through Ari’s grief, her rocky adjustment to a new city, and her clashes with cultural expectations, all while weaving in mysterious symbols tied to her family’s heritage, most notably a necklace that seems to carry an uncanny power. It is both a portrait of adolescence and a meditation on family, loss, and belonging.

I found myself drawn into Ari’s raw anger and aching loneliness. Hewitt captures the turbulence of being a teenager so vividly that I often felt like I was back in my own messy adolescence, stumbling through identity and yearning for control. The writing is crisp and accessible, yet it carries real weight, especially in the quieter scenes where Ari longs for her father or struggles with the heavy silences between herself and her mother. At times, the dialogue made me laugh in recognition, and at other times it brought a lump to my throat.

I’ll admit there were moments when Ari’s stubbornness grated on me, and I caught myself wanting to shake her into patience. But that’s part of why the story works. She feels like a real teenager, with sharp edges and contradictions that make her alive on the page. I also admired the way Hewitt didn’t shy away from difficult conversations about culture, tradition, and feminism. Those scenes felt risky, sometimes messy, but honest. The supernatural hints with the birds and the necklace added just enough mystery to keep me guessing without overwhelming the emotional heart of the story.

This book would be a strong recommendation for teens navigating change, parents trying to understand their children, and anyone who appreciates stories that blend culture, grief, and a dash of the mystical. Cascadia’s Call is the kind of novel that keeps you thinking, not because it resolves everything neatly, but because it captures how uncertain and yet hopeful growing up can be.

Family Dynamics

A huge theme in the book Cascadia’s Call is family dynamics. The way your family treats you can lead to either feeling belonging our looking for belonging elsewhere. Many times belonging is a way of feeling at home somewhere. Ari doesn’t feel at home in the beginning of the book because of her family dynamics. She doesn’t know this extended family that she has been forced to live with. They want to love her, but they don’t know how to treat her to make her feel like she belongs. And she doesn’t know how to let them in. Ari so desperately wants to go back in time to when her dad is alive and she belonged in her family unit. But life sometimes doesn’t let us stay the same. Our family changes, and our feelings of belonging may change in that family unit. Dysfunction in the family can lead to dysfunction in our hearts and minds. When does Ari finally feel belonging? She looks for it in the forest with the birds, with the devas, with the das. But ultimately does she feel like she belongs in her own family? Read the book and let me know what you think!

Lou and Type 1 Diabetes

In the book Cascadia’s Call, one of the main characters is a das humanoid who lives in Flicker village and his name is Luan, “Lou”. Lou has Type 1 diabetes. It was very important for me as an author to promote characters with disabilities, and Type 1 diabetes is close to my heart. The truth is that most many people with Type 1 diabetes present when they are young children although people of any age can get this type of diabetes. In my life, my husband is a Type 1 diabetic also known as LADA because it was triggered late in life. It is a lifelong autoimmune condition where the pancreas makes little or no insulin, which leads to high blood sugar levels. There is no treatment but Insulin that is often given by a pump or shots.

It's not clear what causes type 1 diabetes. The body's immune system, certain viruses and genes seem to play roles. Having a family member with the disease can raise a person's risk of getting it. My girls were lucky to be part of a trial where they were tested to see if they have the autoimmune cells that put them at risk for Type 1 in the future. These kinds of research based, scientific trials are more important than ever for all kinds of autoimmune diseases. We must as a society fund and promote science based research.

By Lou having Type 1 diabetes in Cascadia Calls I try to bring attention to this subset of strong and brave youth who have to face every day with blood sugar levels that can run high or low. When they run high they can feel really amped and horrible, sometimes even vomiting. More dangerous is when they run really low and they could pass out and need sugar immediately and without it they can die.

Breakthrough T1D, formerly JDRF, is an amazing organization with resources and assistance for Type 1 diabetics. Take a look at their website for more information on how you can help. https://www.breakthrought1d.org

More important, kids and adults, don’t treat your Type 1 friends differently because they may need to take breaks for sugar or to manage their blood sugar. They are warriors and deserve to be treated as such. Lou is a character that is vulnerable but strong. He wants more for himself but also wants to be treated like everyone else. We can learn a lot from him and his friendship with Ari.