Review: BRIGHT BURNING STARS by A.K. Small

 

Bright Burning Stars by A.K. Small
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Best friends Marine Duval and Kate Sanders have trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School since childhood, where they’ve formed an inseparable bond forged by respective family tragedies and a fierce love for dance. When the body of a student is found in the dorms just before the start of their final year, Marine and Kate begin to ask themselves what they would do to win the ultimate prize: to be the one girl selected to join the Opera’s prestigious corps de ballet. Would they die? Cheat? Seduce the most talented boy in the school, dubbed the Demigod, hoping his magic would make them shine, too? Neither girl is sure.

But then Kate gets closer to the Demigod, even as Marine has begun to capture his heart. And as selection day draws near, the competition—for the prize, for the Demigod—becomes fiercer, and Marine and Kate realize they have everything to lose, including each other.

---

4.5 stars.

What can I say? I've picked up yet another novel about ballet dancers!

I've actually been waiting over a year for this book, and when my paperback preorder finally arrived, I was so excited to start it.

It follows two ballet dancers, Marine and Kate, as they finish their final year of ballet school and compete for a prestigious role as a professional dancer. We see their friendship tested as both strive to achieve the attentions of the best male dancer there, Cyrille, who is nicknamed "The Demigod." I must admit, I found that name annoying, especially how the nickname is used so frequently in the text.

The romance is heavier in this book than I was expecting, but it works. And we see the lengths that people will go to to get what they want. Hello, toxic competitive ballet dancers! This has to be one of my favourite things.

Oh and Marine's grieving for her brother who died several years ago too.

There are quite a lot of content warnings for this book though: sex, abortion, drugs, mental health, eating disorders, suicide, sucide attempts, grief, death. There really is so much wrapped up in these pages.

View all my reviews

Review: SHINY BROKEN PIECES by Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton

 

Shiny Broken Pieces by Sona Charaipotra
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

June, Bette, and Gigi have given their all to dance at Manhattan’s most elite ballet school. Now they are competing one final time for a spot at the prestigious American Ballet Company. With the stakes higher than ever, these girls have everything to lose… and no one is playing nice.

June is starting to finally see herself as a prima ballerina. However, getting what she wants might cost her everything—including the only boy she’s ever loved. Legacy dancer Bette is determined to clear her name after she was suspended and accused of hurting her rival, Gigi. Even if she returns, though, will she ever regain the spotlight she craves? And Gigi is not going to let Bette—or the other dancers who bullied her—go unpunished. But as revenge consumes her, Gigi may be the one who pays the price.

After years of grueling auditions, torn ribbons, and broken hearts, it all comes down to this last dance. Who will make the cut? And who will lose her dream forever?

--- 

If I could give this book more than 5 stars, I would. I already loved the first book in the series and rated that one 5 stars, because it was so good--and so I wasn't expecting the sequel to be even better. But it is...

Book one ends with a pretty big event (spoilers for book 1 here): Gigi's been run over and one of the ballet dancers was behind it. This book opens a little while after this. Gigi is now recovered and returning to the school (alongside Cassie who is also returning--Cassie was absent on-page from book 1, having also been injured in the bullying). June is back at the school too but on thin ice as the school are now aware of her eating disorder and tell her she will be asked to leave if she doesn't improve. Bette is back at her family home for much of the book, having been excluded from the school who believe she was responsible for Gigi's accident--even though Bette's narrative tells us she wasn't and she's determined to find out who was.

So the stakes are immediately high in this book and it takes on almost thriller vibes at times. And it's just so tense--because the girls in this book are even more vicious than in the last book!

Gigi and Cassie team up together, which is understandable as there's no way Gigi is going to trust Bette or June. But Cassie is so, so toxic though and we see her manipulating Gigi, getting her to do things she'd never normally do (such as giving Eleanor peanuts when the girl has a severe peanut allergy). Gigi also cuts off all of June's hair, and there are numerous other things she now does without question due to the mindset that her accident and Cassie's manipulation have got her into.

And Gigi isn't the only one whose 'pranks' turn more severe. We see June also upping her game, and we see just how far Bette will go to clean her name.

Of course there's more darkness in this book--but I actually think it was handled even better than in book one. (Spoilers ahead). We've got a predatory teacher preying on Eleanor (Bette's best friend), and Bette takes photographic evidence of this. When these photos are mysteriously leaked to the students and teachers, Eleanor is blamed and slut-shamed--and then she attempts suicide too. My heart was racing at this point and I couldn't read fast enough to see if Eleanor was okay.

June's eating disorder becomes even more prominent, and she's also balancing this with the stress of the future of her romantic relationship with Jahye, as he wants her to relocate to where he's going to college, which would mean giving up her dreams of being a professional ballet dancer.

In fact, all three narrators--June, Bette, and Gigi--are worrying about their future in this book, as are all the other main characters (Cassie, Will, etc). This is their last year at the ballet school and the school only offers places to two dancers. There's this huge sense of urgency and inevitable change.

One of the reasons I really loved this sequel is because I felt Bette's character was more fully fleshed out. In book 1, she's backstabbing and manipulative--and she is in this book two, but we learn more about her. Because she's at home for a lot of the book, we get an insight to her family life that we didn't have before and we meet her father who left her. We also understand more about why she's so jealous of Gigi as she is still in love with her ex (Gigi's boyfriend). And we get a lot more insight into Bette's addiction too and how she struggles with drugs.

In fact, I think this book has more psychological insight for all the narrators--especially June. 

And, of course, it's a hugely diverse book in terms of race and disability/chronic illness. 

The only 'negative' I have about it (and I had to think hard about this one!) is the male characters, mainly the male ballet dancers. Because the female ballet dancers' personalities were so strong and so well developed, they felt flatter in comparison. I did catch myself skimming over scenes with Alec and Will, at times, purely because I wanted to get to the 'heart' of the novel where it was about the backstabbing girls pretty much plotting to murder each other.

But this has to be one of my top reads.

View all my reviews

Review: MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russell

 

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.

2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.

2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only her—may be far different from what she has always believed?

Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.

-- 
Oh my goodness. This book is dark. It is intense. It's amazing. And it's such an important read.

Content warning for sexual abuse, sexual assault, child sexual abuse, and grooming.

So I listened to the audiobook of this one, and I was just overwhelmed. I think that's the best way to describe my reaction. I found it difficult to listen to--and several times I had to stop when the story just became too much. It felt too real, and the rape scenes were very graphic. It made me feel sick, and as someone who's experienced sexual violence, this book just hit too close to home several times.

But I couldn't leave the book alone for long. I always had to know what happened next. I had to know if Vanessa would realise that she had been abused, and I had to know if her abuser would pay. But I think it was the first of those reasons--needing to see if Vanessa would or could understand what had happened to her was wrong--was what really drove the story. Because for a lot of the book, the relationship she had with her teacher was romanticised. And it was romanticised a lot. It's skillfully written, because as an adult reader, I could see what it was: a predatory, abusive relationship, even though for a long time, the main character can't see this. And I think what really helped was that we get pretty much duel timelines. We see her as an adult looking back (albeit she still isn't accepting that it was wrong, still believing her relationship with the man to be different, even as he is now facing accusations of abusing other girls at the school). And because we get these different perspectives--adult Vanessa as well as teenage/child Vanessa--that's what really makes this story a masterpiece.

We see the effects of this abuse on Vanessa as an adult, even though she's still struggling to see it for what it was. We see her going to therapists and struggling to hold relationships with others, both romantic and familial. We see the effects of the abuse on her relationship with her parents, both at the time when she was a fifteen-year-old and now as an adult. But we also see the the changing attitudes toward sexual assault and child sexual abuse and grooming in the book.

As a child, Vanessa takes the blame for it all when others find out about her relationship with the teacher. The fact that the teacher actually coerced her into taking the blame, really manipulating her, set me teeth on edge as I was reading, and I felt so, so angry.

But we do see how attitudes are changing in the book--as an adult, and when others have come forward about this teaching abusing them, Vanessa is starting to accept what happened to her was abuse and we see others supporting her.

There wasn't really a sense of justice though, (spoiler ahead), as the predatory teacher takes his own life about halfway through the adult timeline of the book, which does lead to Vanessa having to deal with guilt over this as well. While I desperately wanted there to be justice, I can't deny that that wouldn't have been right for the story that the author was telling here. She was focusing on Vanessa and showing what does happen.

This book is dark, probably the darkest thing I've ever read. It's disturbing. There's no denying it. I think that's why I wouldn't necessarily say I 'enjoyed' this book. It was emotionally draining. But it was so, so good. Really well written. And it's an important book that needs to be read.

View all my reviews

Review: ALL YOUR TWISTED SECRETS by Diana Urban

 

All Your Twisted Secrets by Diana Urban
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This thrilling debut, reminiscent of new fan favorites like One of Us Is Lying and the beloved classics by Agatha Christie, will leave readers guessing until the explosive ending.

Welcome to dinner, and again, congratulations on being selected. Now you must do the selecting.

What do the queen bee, star athlete, valedictorian, stoner, loner, and music geek all have in common? They were all invited to a scholarship dinner, only to discover it’s a trap. Someone has locked them into a room with a bomb, a syringe filled with poison, and a note saying they have an hour to pick someone to kill … or else everyone dies.

Amber Prescott is determined to get her classmates and herself out of the room alive, but that might be easier said than done. No one knows how they’re all connected or who would want them dead. As they retrace the events over the past year that might have triggered their captor’s ultimatum, it becomes clear that everyone is hiding something. And with the clock ticking down, confusion turns into fear, and fear morphs into panic as they race to answer the biggest question: Who will they choose to die?

------

I already know this is going to be one of my top reads of 2021. It's PHENOMENAL.

I love locked room mysteries. And I love escape room mysteries. I love stories about friendships--especially when those friendships turn bad. I love unlikeable female characters. I love unreliable narrators. And I love alternating timelines. This book has it all. I mean, I was almost afraid that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but this book is phenomenal. Truly spectacular.

The book starts with Amber invited to a restaurant to meet the mayor, as she's got a scholarship. Also invited are her boyfriend Robbie, her former best friend Priya, her current friend Sasha, the school drug-dealer Scott, and Diego, who is the boy Amber now likes. When the six get to the restaurant, they're trapped. The door locks, and they can't get out. Then Amber discovers a bomb with a one-hour countdown and a syringe. Instructions tell them that the syringe contains poison and they must choose one person to die before the hour's up, else the bomb will kill them all. Cue: panic.

But how amazing is this set up? So, the narrative alternates between them in this one-hour countdown as they panic and try to think of ways out, and scenes from the last year or so. We get to know the characters, and gradually the past scenes reveal huge secrets--secrets that are then brought up in the current timeline as the characters turn on each other, as they try to work out who to die.

And this is where we see that all these characters are complex. They've all got secrets, all got flaws--it's amazing writing.

The next part of my review contains spoilers, so be warned!

Amber is our main character. She's hugely talented with music and she's also still grieving over her older sister's death. Maggie took her own life after being bullied for about a year by an unknown girl.

Sasha is the queen bee of the school. We see her befriend Amber, and readers can immediately tell that Sasha is using Amber. But Amber can't see this at the time, and it was infuriating! We could see exactly what was going on. But in the present timeline, Amber's very aware of who Sasha really is--but she doesn't expect for more secrets to be revealed in the bomb's countdown, namely that Sasha is the girl who bullied Maggie, causing Maggie to commit suicide.

Priya is Amber's former best friend. She was also initiated into Sasha's popular group when Sasha befriended Amber, but Sasha bullied Priya too in the same way she'd already bullied Maggie (and she knew what happened to Maggie, too). The bullying in this storyline culminates in Priya having her front teeth knocked out and Sasha sharing a video of it to the whole school. Priya then drops Sasha as a friend, and also Amber.

Next we have Robbie. He's Sasha's best friend and becomes Amber's boyfriend. He's a nice enough guy--until he believes that his dreams and ambitions are more important than Amber's. Then he becomes a bit of dick.

Diego is Amber's friend from when she was a child. The two fell out after Diego invented a colour-changing sponge and Diego's father resigned from Amber's father's business, causing it to fold. Diego is also extremely intelligent, and we see how Sasha is in direct competition with him for getting into Harvard. Sasha does her best to sabotage Diego at every opportunity, no matter the consequence.

And last is Scott. He's the stoner of the school, and he at first seems out of place being invited to the restaurant--it's believable to Amber that all the others have been invited there to celebrate their scholarships, but not Scott.

So, this is the set-up. (And even more spoilers ahead now). As the hour passes, the characters turn on each other and several get injured. When trying to break the windows to escape, Scott falls and breaks his ankle. Priya is hypoglycemic and passes out at one point, but Diego revives her.

The writing is so good that I kept working out what I'd do if I was in this situation. Faking a death seemed like an obvious thing to do, but it took the characters a long time to decide to do this.

And as the time is running out and they're all convinced they have to kill someone, Amber manages to turn everyone against Sasha so she is the one who gets injected with the syringe of poison.

At which point, they discover that the poison isn't real! I mean, to be honest, I was thinking that would have to happen. But Sasha, still alive, turns on the others. She attacks Amber, and she tries to kill her. Amber is saved by Priya, who stabs Sasha with a shard of glass from the window in self-defense. And Sasha dies.

And at this point, my eyes were so wide as I was reading (well, listening, as I had the audiobook, which has fantastic narration!). They'd literally killed one of the group. And still the bomb was counting down.

When the time runs out, and they're all alive, it's so tense. They hear footsteps and this was the part where I really had no idea who had orchestrated all this--which, I must admit, is unusual. I read a lot of YA thrillers and usually have some sort of idea. But I was flummoxed. And it's a delivery driver who lets them out. He's been instructed to deliver a cake to the room with a message telling them that they now know who each other are.

This writing--it's just so amazing. Tense. I was on the edge of my seat. (I actually had to stop listening at this point, as I had to get off the bus, and I was desperate to keep listening!).

And then we have the timeline going to four hours ago--and we get the huge reveal. Amber set all this up!!!! So, I didn't see it coming--even though one of the past scenes ends with Amber wanting to get revenge on Sasha. But I trusted Amber as she's our first person narrator. I believed her when she said she didn't know what was going on.

But then the pieces started to slot into place. Amber was the one who found the bomb in the room. All the people in the room were connected most strongly to Amber. And this is a story of revenge. It's a story of Amber wanting to teach Sasha a lesson--it wasn't supposed to end up with murder, but it did. It's Priya getting revenge on Sasha for the bullying--though Priya only stabs Sasha to stop her killing Amber. It's just...wow. That reveal--that Amber was behind it all--changed my whole view on her. I didn't know what to think anymore. I was totally blown away. Absolutely blown away. And it made Amber unlikeable. She was going to get away what was basically murder--even if she'd not intended to kill. But then Amber feels guilt. She goes to turn herself in, and is stopped by Priya and Diego.

It really is a story about the power of friendship and how toxic teenagers can be. It's a story of cold, calculated revenge. A story of secrets being revealed and the lengths that people will go to in order to keep them.

Highly recommended.

There are lot of trigger warnings for this book: suicide, drugs, bullying, abuse, implied school shooting at one point, potential for eating disorder survivors to be triggered by some of the bullying language used toward Priya.

View all my reviews

Review: LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE by Jessica Knoll (audiobook narrated by Madeleine Maby)

 

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

HER PERFECT LIFE IS A PERFECT LIE.

As a teenager at the prestigious Bradley School, Ani FaNelli endured a shocking, public humiliation that left her desperate to reinvent herself. Now, with a glamorous job, expensive wardrobe, and handsome blue blood fiancé, she’s this close to living the perfect life she’s worked so hard to achieve.

But Ani has a secret.

There’s something else buried in her past that still haunts her, something private and painful that threatens to bubble to the surface and destroy everything.

With a singular voice and twists you won’t see coming, Luckiest Girl Alive explores the unbearable pressure that so many women feel to “have it all” and introduces a heroine whose sharp edges and cutthroat ambition have been protecting a scandalous truth, and a heart that's bigger than it first appears.

The question remains: will breaking her silence destroy all that she has worked for—or, will it at long last, set Ani free?

--

This is the first audiobook I've ever listened to, and it was a great one to start with. LUCKIEST GIRL ALIVE is a complex story of lies, trust, and one woman's desperation to be 'perfect'. We meet Ani when she's in her late twenties, and she seems to have it all: a great job, a great boyfriend, an impending marriage, great prospects in life. But right from the start, there's something disturbing about our narrating character. It becomes clear very quickly that Ani has a dark side. And I just LOVE dark narrators. She's also pretty unlikeable and not your typical female narrator--and that I just loved.

(Spoilers ahead:)

Ani is a disturbed woman with lots of secrets--least of all that she murdered someone. I hesitate to call her a murderer because as the book reveals it was in self-defence and happened when she was 14. And wow, this girl's past is just phenomenal. The book alternates between present-day action where Ani is preparing to take part in a documentary to 'set the record straight' about what happened when she was school, and gives us real-time chapters of that time.

We follow Ani as she joins the Bradley school, as she becomes mixed up in toxic friendship groups, as she becomes victim of sexual assault and rape, as she suddenly finds herself in a school shooting. This book is POWERFUL. That, I can't stress this enough. And the characterisation is so phenomenal. In the present-day, Ani comes across as an entitled and arrogant woman who cares wholly about perceptions and what others think when they see her. Yet, from reading everything that's happened to her, it becomes understandable. This new identity is one she's actually constructed to protect herself.

And it's not just her characterisation which is amazing. Every single character in this book has amazing characterisation--and this makes it quite complicated in some respects, as Ani's rapists are shown to have good traits. It makes it realistic, but it also makes for such a disturbing read. Jessica Knoll is an expert.

I particularly liked as, the more we read, the more layers of the main characters were revealed. This was especially the case with Luke, the 'perfect' fiance. By about the halfway point, his true character had been revealed, and I desperately wanted Ani to do better than him. So, I was really satisfied with the ending, where she leaves him.

There's also a big emphasis on names and identity in this book. Throughout it, Ani has multiple names referring to the various different identities she has been through--she reinvented herself after leaving the Bradley school, going by Ani then (whereas before she was Tiffany). And this just seemed really realistic and added to the idea that 'Ani' (the successful and rich magazine editor) is a construction. Ani is a cage around Tiffany, one to protect her--and that final line of the book, where Ani reclaims her identity as Tiffany FaNelli, is just so powerful because of this.

There are some difficult scenes in this book, as can be expected. At 14, Tiffany is invited to a party by her male classmates. She is the only girl there, and she's raped by three of them. She later attends Planned Parenthood to get the Morning After pill. When her mother finds out about this, we get a victim-blaming narrative from her (which is challenged by other characters). We're also dealing with content about suicide and mass-shootings in schools. Children do die in this book and it is heart-wrenching. The shooters are both children too--one of whom is Tiffany's friend.

Madeleine Maby is a terrific narrator. That has to be said too. I was apprehensive about audiobooks, thinking I wouldn't be sucked in in the way I am when reading a paperback or ebook, and although the experience of listening to an audiobook is different, this really was excellent.

I highly recommend this story of identity, revenge, loss, lies, and secrets.

View all my reviews

Review: CRACKED UP TO BE by Courtney Summers

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?

Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her conselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.

Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.

Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

So, last year I read my first book by Courtney Summers. It was SADIE, and I loved it sooooo much. Instantly, I knew I had to read more of Summers’s books—but you know what? I was apprehensive. I thought that no other book could possibly live up to the expectations I now had. Because SADIE was phenomenal.

But with the ten-year anniversary of Summers’s debut novel, CRACKED UP TO BE, coming up, and it being reissued with a gorgeous new cover, I persuaded myself to buy a copy. I’m ashamed to say it still took me a while to get around to reading it. That is until yesterday arrived.

I started CRACKED UP TO BE at 2pm, and by 8pm I’d finished it. It’s amazing. Simply amazing. I might even love it more than Sadie.

It’s unusual for me to read a whole book in one sitting, and this just proves how good this book is.

The tenth-anniversary addition includes a new introduction written by Summers, and I loved the insight she gives us to her characters. Although, when reading it, I hadn’t yet started the novel, I already knew I’d adore the protagonist, Parker, as Summer tells us she’s considered to be “unlikeable”—precisely because she has the qualities and characteristics that are celebrated in male characters.

And, wow, I was not wrong about liking her. Parker is quite possibly the best protagonist I’ve read. Ever.

Let’s just let that sink in for a moment.

The best protagonist ever.

Yep, that’s how good this book is.

Parker is a troublemaker. She’s constantly in trouble at school. She’s dark and mysterious, she’s got a drink problem, and she’s harbouring a dark, dark secret that haunts her. Her behaviour is reckless and wild—but she’s also got a soft, vulnerable side. She cares deeply about others.

She feels so real. So, so real. Her actions are totally understandable. She’s afraid to let others close to her, so she pushes them away. She’s not just a reckless character for the sake of being reckless.

Just, wow. And even her narrative voice is amazing. It’s so unique.

And the plot. It is soooo good. We’ve got a missing girl and a murder, and a girl struggling with what she’s seen, as well as many other characters who are all struggling as well—but in different ways.

The other main characters—Jake, Chris, and Becky—are equally well written. So believable. Ah, I really can’t say enough good things about this book.

It’s told in a dual timeline. We’ve got the present day action interspersed with flashbacks all pertaining to one night. The night that a girl went missing. The night that was the catalyst for everything bad that happened. The night that turned Parker from a high-achieving student into a girl who’s broken and haunted and trying to pretend she isn’t.

Okay—spoilers ahead now, so skip this paragraph if you don’t want to know. When it was revealed that the missing girl Jessie was Parker’s best friend everything made so much sense. That’s when it all started to come together. And I couldn’t read quickly enough.

*Content warning for rape, sexual assault, attempted suicide.*

View all my reviews

Review: LAST GIRL LIED TO By L.E. Flynn

Last Girl Lied To by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Something made him angry that night.
Something made her cry.
Something made Trixie disappear.
What if it was all the same thing?

Fiona claims she doesn't remember anything about the night her best friend left a party early and walked into the ocean. But the truth is, she wishes she could forget.

Trixie's disappearance is ruled a suicide, but Fiona starts to believe that Trixie isn't really dead. Piecing together the trail of a girl who doesn't want to be found leads her to Jasper, Trixie's former friend with benefits, and Beau--the boy who turned Fiona down, who loved someone else, who might be happy Trixie is gone.

The closer Fiona gets to finding out what happened, and the closer she gets to Jasper and Beau, the more she realizes that the girl she knew better than anyone may have been a carefully constructed lie--and she might have been waiting to disappear the entire time.

Told in alternating chapters between the past and the present, Last Girl Lied To is a gripping emotional thriller.

--

Last Girl Lied To is the first book by L.E Flynn that I’ve read, and I really enjoyed it. It’s a haunting read of loss and tragedy. Of mistakes and regrets. Of jealousy and dreams.

This book tells the story of Fiona as she struggles to process all her emotions around the disappearance and presumed death of her best friend Trixie. The writing is poetic in places and there are some really beautiful images inside these pages, with some absolutely killer cliffhangers. Seriously, some of the pages I just couldn’t turn fast enough!

All the characters in this book are so well written, they feel real and true, like people you could actually meet. At first, I struggled to relate to Fiona as I didn’t really understand who she was, but as I read on I realised this was an important theme in the novel—discovering who you are when you’re on your own, rather than knowing who you are depending on those you are around.

The thriller mystery part about what really happened to Trixie was tightly written with so many twists. I also loved how we only really see Trixie through Fiona’s eyes and the flashbacks, so there’s always the question of how reliable a narrator Fiona is, especially as we see how the different circumstances and situations she encounters rapidly changes her view of Trixie.

There are quite a lot of characters in this story, and many have complicated relationships. At times, I had forgotten a few of the details that were slipped into previous scenes but it was never enough that it meant I was lost. The writing was inviting and welcomed me into the story each time I sat down to continue it.

The romance in this book is well-written, and it builds naturally. I was a bit surprised by how quickly Fiona sleeps with her new boyfriend, but by the end of the book, the reason for this was clear.

The only thing I didn’t particularly like was how it was mentioned that the villain was sent to a psychiatric hospital, implying he’d committed murder because he was mad. I felt like this didn’t help some of the stigma around mental illness.

All in all, this is a fast-paced thriller and I recommend it.

A big thank you to the author and publisher for providing a free review copy of this book.

Review: BIRD BOX by Josh Malerman

Bird Box by Josh Malerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Malorie raises the children the only way she can: indoors, with the doors locked, the curtains closed, and mattresses nailed over the windows.

The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall, but soon she will have to wake them and blindfold them.

Today they will risk everything. Today they will leave the house.

Josh Malerman’s New York Times bestselling Bird Box is a terrifying psychological thriller that will haunt you long after reading.

--

Bird Box is an intense, gripping, and fast-paced apocalyptic thriller by Josh Malerman. I only became aware of the existence of this book after watching the film starring Sandra Bullock. I absolutely loved that film—it had heart, action, and horror packed in—and so when I saw the ebook was on sale for £0.99 o just had to give it a try.

Because I’d loved the film so much, I was a little sceptical—but the book is even better. Malorie, our main character, is strongly written and the narrative really delves deeper into her psyche, allowing us to see new layers that the film didn’t have. We see her weaknesses and her faults as she battles to keep her two young children alive in a world where opening your eyes can get you killed.

The other main characters are well written and believable, and we see how stress brings out the worst and best things about humanity.

Remarkably, the plot of the film is strikingly close to the book. Of course, there are some differences (such as some events happen much closer together in the film and it also has a main character doe much later than in the book), but all the other essential elements are there—the book just develops many more, such as the survivors’ use of animals in keeping them safe from the creatures that will drive them mad if they see them.

I was delighted to see the book kept the back-and-forth non-linear narrative that the film had. I just loved that structure.

There is a lot of darkness in this book and a few scenes that made me feel queasy. Warning for suicide, murder, and graphic violent content.

This is a must-read for apocalypse and dystopian fans.

View all my reviews

Review: PAPERWEIGHT by Meg Haston

Title: Paperweight
Author: Meg Haston
Publisher: HarperTeen
My rating: 4 stars

Seventeen-year-old Stevie is trapped. In her life. And now in an eating-disorder treatment center on the dusty outskirts of the New Mexico desert.

Life in the center is regimented and intrusive, a nightmare come true. Nurses and therapists watch Stevie at mealtime, accompany her to the bathroom, and challenge her to eat the foods she’s worked so hard to avoid.

Her dad has signed her up for sixty days of treatment. But what no one knows is that Stevie doesn't plan to stay that long. There are only twenty-seven days until the anniversary of her brother Josh’s death—the death she caused. And if Stevie gets her way, there are only twenty-seven days until she too will end her life.

Review: 

Wow, so this is a hard book to write about because the story is so raw and poignant, believable and haunting.

I've had a copy of this book for about nine months. I purchased it after being recommended several titles about teenagers struggling with eating disorders, from one of the #UKYAChat sessions. This is the last of those books that I got around to reading--the others including titles such as Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson and Countless by Karen Gregory. One of the reasons I left this book for such a long time, not reading it alongside the other books about eating disorders, is because I thought it might be very triggering for me. Reading the back cover copy had me a little worried. In actual fact, I found Anderson's book to be the most triggering, and Paperweight was more hopeful than I'd anticipated, despite the darkness in its pages. 

This book does cover some very dark topics. You've got suicidal ideation, attempted suicide, suicide planning, self-harm, the death of a sibling, guilt, and blame. Alongside these, the main characters (apart from Shrink) have Anorexia Nervosa and/or Bulimia Nervosa. 

The story opens with Stevie on her way to a treatment centre, and follows her journey. This character is written fantastically. From what I understand, this book is an #ownvoices eating disorder story, as there's an author's note in the back that briefly mentions that Meg Haston has been both a therapist and patient. Stevie's struggle is portrayed really realistically, and she felt so real. We really feel where she's at emotionally as she goes from resistive to accepting of how sick she is, with lots of see-sawing on the way. 

Identity seems to be a huge part of this book, and (spoiler ahead) Stevie wanted the label of anorexia rather than bulimia. Her explanations as to why really resonated with me and it was at that point where I felt I really understood who she was. She needs the labels because of what they represent in her eyes and in the eyes of others. 

Another big theme in this book is toxic relationships. You've got Stevie's fraught relationship with her mother, and also the very controlling and toxic friendship (which becomes something more) between Eden and Stevie. Eden is a fascinating character and I loved how her relationship with Stevie was juxtaposed against the more healthy connection Stevie develops with Ashley at the treatment centre. Stevie's realisation that Ashley wants to be her friend whereas Eden just wants to eclipse her was such a powerful moment. 

Overall, this is a great read.

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.

--

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.

View all my reviews