Review: UNDONE by Cat Clarke

Undone by Cat Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it.

Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself.

Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down.

A searing story of love, revenge and betrayal from a bestselling author.

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For much of this book, I simply didn’t know what to think. It had the usual challenging and sensitive topics that Cat Clarke covers in her books, and was written in the same engaging, addictive style, but I often felt so disconnected from the main characters. The first two-thirds in particular just lacked the connection to Jem that I’d hoped for. Mainly I believe this is because she’s just such an unlikeable character. But I was really hoping for that connecting moment that I got with all of Clarke’s other books. And I didn’t really get it.

Jem is mean and seeking revenge, she doesn’t care who she hurts, she spreads nasty rumours (after having seen the devastating damage they can do), and she bulldozes her way over people’s feelings. All of this she believes is okay because she’s doing it for her best friend Kai who committed suicide.

I can see that her behaviour is in part because she’s grieving and full of so much pain, but I just couldn’t get on board with it. She changes into a different person completely—something she acknowledges. But the more she wanted to hurt Lucas, Stu, and Bugs, the more I empathised with them—and I strongly suspected (spoiler alert!) the twist that was coming at the end, regarding who the real “perpetrators” were.

Sasha was by far my favourite character—yet Jem takes great care to point out how fake and too pretty she is. Yet she’s honestly the nicest one in the book. I also liked Lucas (though I didn’t quite believe in the romance between him and Jem, especially when the book starts with him with Sasha).

The addition of Kai’s letters to Jem throughout the book was great. My only problem is that because they were images of handwriting, my kindle had problems displaying them big enough to read. Unfortunately, the letters made Kai rather unlikebale as he tries to change who Jem is, telling her to change her hair and her clothes.

The ending was great though! The tension was brilliant and the final twist was heart-breaking.

Warning: this book contains suicide and suicidal ideation.

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