Category: Young Adult

Brothers & Sisters | The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

The Dutch House,
by Ann Patchett,
Published by Harper (2019)
Rating: ***

Introduction

The title of this review stems from this Coldplay song. I discovered this book through the Goodreads algorithm, and later saw this lovely special edition that had been printed which looks stunning (here – look at those pages!), and was tempted to read it. I consumed this in-part through an audiobook, and in-part through the ebook. My overall rating stems from how I felt at the end of the book rather than being representative of individual components of the book itself.

Plot

The book navigates the life of the Conroy family, centering around siblings: Danny and Maeve, who struggle to confront the past and live in the present – returning to their childhood home as observers to figure out everything in their lives. The book begins at Danny’s childhood, with Maeve taking on a motherly role when their biological mother abandons them. It takes us through a tumultuous teenage time, where Danny and Maeve are booted out of the house by their stepmother once their father passes, and how they survive the world.

 The Home As A Character

Patchett does a tremendous job of making The Dutch House, the titular object a character within the book. She exposes the interiors, first allowing Danny to discover the house while growing up, and then allowing the younger stepsiblings to introduce us to more layers to the house when they are left in the care of Danny & Maeve. Maeve recounts everything about the past by using the house as a frame of reference. Not only does that set up context to the time in which events take place, but it takes you through the house’s own ageing process at the same time. The voice and tone of the book always make you remember the house’s presence – and in some sections in particular, it feels like it’s the walls of the house talking.

A Rushed Ending

This was honestly beautiful till I was about 70% in. I loved everything about it. I enjoyed the way the siblings grew up and grew older together, and the kind of challenges Danny was going through in processing his emotions. There was a complexity to both Danny and Maeve that made them feel like real people, and that these were real events happening in everyone’s lives. However, the last 30% really threw me off. The plot was rushed through and felt unbelievable. The changes to their lives felt like they were impossible in real-life, which took away from all of the set-up that Patchett had accomplished in the first half. That was disappointing. It felt, in a sense, that this book would have been more enjoyable had the ending not been as rosy as it ended up being. Especially because the book tries to hint at how we deal with the past as people. I would have genuinely preferred if Danny and Maeve struggled – in one final scene, with the idea that they would not get closure, and learned to live with that.

Conclusion

Read for characters who seem to have hearts of gold, and sibling relationships that seem to mirror what real siblings are actually like.

Advertisement

A Love Story | Normal People, by Sally Rooney

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

Normal People,
by Sally Rooney,
Published by Hogarth Press (2019)
Rating: ***

Introduction

This book was recommended to me by a friend who told me she stayed up past her bedtime to finish the book once she started. To me, that’s always a good sign: a story that keeps you gripped to make you ward off sleep is one I’m going to be curious about more often than not. Thus began my adventure with Sally Rooney. I didn’t take a break while reading the book, and my reading of the book was on one of my more productive reading days. However, what kept me going was the hope that it would get better (and better). Unfortunately, while the book was good, I felt the story and the characters – particularly supporting character arcs remained unexplored, making this a lukewarm 3.5-star book for me.

Plot

Quite straightforward. The story follows two teenagers, Marianne and Connell through their final years in adolescence and into early adulthood. They study at the same school in County Sligo and move together to Trinity College Dublin. Connell is popular at high school, and begins a relationship with unpopular Marianne, whose mother employs his mother as a cleaner. He keeps his relationship with her a secret. At Trinity College Dublin, however, the roles are reversed, as Marianne blossoms at University, while Connell struggles to fit in. The book revolves around their everchanging dynamic over the years, examining what bonds them together and what pulls them apart.

The Relationship

Fiction books that rely on characters rather than worlds, or dialogue, need to be able to have firm character arcs: motives, flaws, strengths, that help them blossom through the book. However, a critical aspect of this is their relatability, which, for me, stems out of their interactions with other characters. Where media pieces set themselves up in the context/focus of a singular relationship (think, Titanic), I enjoy them only when I find myself caring about both characters equally. It’s what upset me at the climax of Titanic. Caring about both characters equally means giving them equal footing throughout the book, and allowing them both to play out without remaining in each others’ shadow. More crucially, their interactions need to be real – and not pretense. Rooney accomplishes this by giving both Marianne and Connell strong introductions, and right off the bat, you begin to care about the fate of both characters. As they get to know one another, you begin wondering where their relationship will go. For a book like this, that is particularly helpful, and I enjoyed the fact that I cared about them so much.

However, simultaneously, I was disturbed by the manner in which they romanticized their difficulties. As things progress, there seem to be explanations for some bizarre ways both characters respond to circumstances – but no real discussion of those explanations (which are traumas).

The Writing

Sally Rooney writes beautifully. Her sentences and descriptions are vivid, and in several places, lyrical, like poetry. It’s part of why I kept reading the book. It suited the ending she had set up – which was cheesy and wonderful for the kind of writing she executes. However, it didn’t “move” me in the way that several similar pieces have previously. I wish there was more exploration of secondary characters – their mothers included, which I feel would have added depth to the book.

Conclusion

I completed the book and was left wondering at all the things that could have been. This was, for me, a good, quick, not-so-immersive read.

Preserve Joy | No Longer Human, by Osamu Dazai

Tejas Rao3 Comments

No Longer Human,
by Osamu Dazai, translated by Donald Keene
Published by New Directions (1958)
Rating: ****

Introduction

Goodreads recommended me this book once I had added a few books on Asian and Oriental history generally. Reading the blurb, I felt a newfound appreciation for the algorithm that suggested gems such as this based on my past reading history. Prior to starting the book, I read a little bit about Dazai. Just getting through his Wikipedia page, I recognized that this was going to be a book that would make me feel extreme emotion, or induce extremities in emotional response. This is honestly a heartbreaking story, from start to finish, but a heartbreaking story that deserves the read for the perspective it offers.

Plot

No Longer Human tells us the story of Oba Yozo, a confused child who became a troubled man, someone unable to show his true nature to most people, and feels disqualified as a human being. The story is told in three parts – three distinct memoranda from different parts of Yozo’s life, that attempt to channel his sense of isolation and loneliness he experiences. You can tell, while reading, that this isn’t a fictional character. Oba Yozo, the name, the person, may be fictional, but his emotional responses, his characteristics, speak of a very real struggle. Dazai’s writing has always been classified as being semi-autobiographical. I can’t attest to this, but Oba Yozo’s thoughts lift off the page and speak to you in a manner unlike much else I’ve read.

Guards and Masks

Across all three memoranda, you can recognize that while Yozo struggles with identifying exactly what his emotions represent and point to, he has a self-destructive streak that makes him consistently behave in a cruel manner to anybody who cares about him. His childhood notebook is easy to read, and you can sort of understand the trials and tribulations of a confused child who increasingly feels alienated from everyone else. However, beyond a point, Yozo seems to do things that cause hurt knowingly, which is at the point that I began to develop a distaste for the character. It was odd to realize at the end of the book that there was such a brutality to his honesty about his misdeeds.

Preserving Joy

At the end of the book, all I could think about was the kind of nurturing, joyous environment we need to create on Earth for individuals who struggle with aspects of their identity. While Dazai’s writing makes it almost inevitable at Yozo would have rejected any further nurturing, it pointed to me that perhaps nobody tried to help him let his guard down. Nobody peered through as clearly as he expected. That miscommunication is fatal, and one can’t help but feel sorry for Yozo.

Conclusion

I’d recommend reading this, but the depth of the translation I read felt lacking in parts. Guess it’s time to take all the manga and anime I’ve been exposed to in the past two-three years and learn Japanese to read the original.

Survivor Guilt | Dear Edward, by Ann Napolitano

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

Dear Edward,
by Ann Napolitano
Published by Dial Press (2020)
Rating: ***

Introduction 

Dear Edward was one of my one-day class reads. It was a really, really quick, page-turner that took up a Monday morning and got done by the time I went for lunch. I came across the book on Goodreads and the blurb had me intrigued enough to dive right in. Survivor’s guilt is something I find intriguing because it feels like such an odd facet of human behaviour. Of course this is a sweeping, generalized statement, but in society, we’re so used to switching off and stepping away from responsibility, that sometimes we take responsibility or blame ourselves for things that we do not necessarily have control over. Hearing that a book delved into that, into the thoughts that go on in that process made me fascinated instantly. I dived in with hope, as I do with most books, but as I’ll explain in this review – I was a little confused by the way the plot developed.

Plot

Really simplistic. A plane crashes en route Los Angeles from Newark, killing everyone on board the aircraft except a 12-year old. Through narrative flashbacks and switches to the present-day, the story takes us through Edward’s life after the crash, and what he remembers and deals with as he attempts to cope with life after – without his family, adopted by his uncle and aunt, and being the most famous 12-year old in his neighbourhood.

The flashbacks deal with observations of various characters on the plane and what they were up to in their final moments, which plays into a key plot device of foreshadowing the latter half of the book where Edward discovers letters addressed to him by the relatives of all those individuals.

Something I found out after finishing the book was that this was based on a crash that took place in 2010, killing everyone except a 9-year old Dutch boy – a story that captivated Napolitano’s imagination so much that she knew it had to be told.

Struggle

Napolitano does an excellent job of portraying the struggle and unease that comes with surviving trauma. A large portion of this I felt came out of the dispassionate, disconnected, neutral narrative tone that was adopted to the entire book, insofar as it felt like there was always an arms-length distance between the reader and everything Edward was experiencing. In a lot of ways, the book’s development was almost a social, scientific observation of Edward’s actions and the actions of those around him – with fact and analysis intertwined and behaviours explained and rationalized as best as possible.

A key element that I felt added to that tone was the air of mystery that surrounded every character. There’s very little attention given to the backstory of every character, and even while describing events on the plane, or things Edward goes through at school, there’s very little diving into Edward’s past. The only time we see it happen is with Shay, another character central to Edward’s development, but this comes quite late on in the entire story as Edward breaks down walls he’s built around him to protect himself.

Clichés 

One of the things I found disappointing was the way in which Napolitano portrayed some characters, which allowed for the furtherance of clichés and tropes about professions. A key example here is the flight attendant, who is unprofessional in dealing with passenger requests on a regular basis and feels extremely out of place compared to other characters in the book. There is a classic stereotype associated with unprofessional staff in the hospitality sector, flight attendants included, and Veronica’s character allowed for the furthering of that stereotype by latching onto it and not creating any depth of character for them. Where characters are introduced in novels – especially coming-of-age novels, I find that these characters need to be central to the growth that takes place – and I didn’t really see that happen here.

The Ending

The plot arc was set up so wonderfully, especially with the dispassionate narration, because it was all so expected. Once the letters were introduced, it was a certainty that Edward would read them and learn things about people wishing things for him or wanting him to do things and fulfil the life that they believe their loved ones would have had. However, I expected that this is where Napolitano would introduce some amount of emotion into the story – to inject the feeling that would have brought Edward to life – a character that is impacted by what he reads. That would have imparted warmth to me, knowing that every event, every interaction Edward had did actually impact him.

Au contraire, reading the chapters about the letters were the portions in which I felt the storytelling was the most cold and the most distant. It was glossed through, glanced over, and felt like it was put together to help piece together the romantic conclusion the book had primed itself for once Shay was introduced.

That was unfortunate.

Concluding Thoughts

I wish we had a more fleshed out story with a little more soul. This is clearly a heart-wrenching premise, but it needed more for me, and that’s what impacted my rating the most. Read for a depiction of the kind of guilt that’s difficult to put into words.

Tell the Wolves I’m Home | Carol Rifka Brunt

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

Tell the Wolves I’m Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt,
Published by Random House (2012)
Rating: **** 

This is a very touching tale. It was a good pick after Black Leopard, Red Wolf – especially because of the kind of emotions I was left it at the end of that book, the eerie, not so optimistic kind.

The book itself is very layered, but centers itself around a singular premise: grief. June is forced to cope with the death of her beloved uncle Finn, a gay man in the 80’s who passes away as a result of AIDS. She has grown up resenting her uncle’s boyfriend, Toby: a man blamed by her parents for her uncle’s death. June and Toby were also often competing for her uncle’s affection, attention, and time, leading to a complex relationship. His passing forges an unexpected friendship between these two individuals. June’s uncle was an artist, and through discovery of his art, we learn how grief impacts two people close to the departed and the way they share in their sorrows and their joyful memories.

There’s an emotional weight to the writing. Their friendship begins with a posthumous gift that Finn gifts to June through Toby. June slowly discovers Finn’s spirit living on in Toby – who replaces Finn as an uncle-figure in her life.

Rifka Brunt’s writing is enjoyable. The book itself, is wholesome. I’m not left with unanswered questions or unresolved emotions – but moral conflicts that are easily resolved, and a story that feels complete. I docked a star for its simplicity. Things seemed too convenient, for me – and I would have appreciated if June’s voice was a little more suited to her age throughout the book. Often it felt that Brunt purposefully chose a voice younger that June’s actual age, which takes away from the kind of relatability the book enjoys.

For the imagery and the symbolism, and the description of grief and friendship, this is worth reading.

Skyward (Skyward #1) | Brandon Sanderson

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

Skyward (Skyward #1)
by Brandon Sanderson
Published by Gollancz (2018)
Rating: ***  

Throughout this book, I felt like I was reading Artemis, by Andy Weir. I try to refrain from making comparatives, but the premise of both plots are extremely similar: a female protagonist attempting to disprove society, outer space, and an identity conflict which pervades across the protagonist’s relationship with other characters in the book. I left the book thinking it merited a 4-star rating, but the more I thought about the ending, the more my feelings, and consequently, my rating dipped. To be fair, I think this book is truly an exemplar of 3.5-star writing. I’ll attempt to justify my conflicting emotions throughout this review. A couple of things I’d like to clarify: this book isn’t like any other Sanderson material. If you’re coming into this book expecting something similar to Mistborn – it isn’t there. You’d rather adjudicate this book on its own merit.

Spensa has always longed to be a pilot like her father –  even when he flees in the middle of battle and is shot down by his own side in punishment for cowardice. Spensa is one of the descendants of a wrecked space fleet who found a precarious refuge in the caverns of a graveyard of a planet while an unknown alien species launches constant attacks, trying to destroy what civilization humanity has managed to recreate. Spensa and her family have to live under her father’s dishonorable reputation, even though Spensa is certain that he wasn’t a coward and that there has to be more to the story. Getting into flight school will be hard enough, but graduating will be even harder — many cadets and pilots don’t survive their first encounters with the enemy. In a predictable conclusion, Spensa participates in several heroic acts in an epic battle sequence at the end.

Let’s deal with the positives first, for I do think the book has plenty.

The characters are incredible. There’s a depth to each one of the individuals Sanderson creates, and each of them help with plot development greatly. What I admire about Sanderson’s writing is his ability to create character arcs for every one of his characters, without it feeling forced onto the reader. Sanderson cleverly masks each individual’s history: whether Cobb’s, Ironside’s, Gram-Gram’s, and even Jerkface’s, into their interaction with Spensa. This allows the reader greater understanding of each character’s motivations and weaknesses, with an easy comparison to Spensa’s own. Another result of doing this is that the focus never wavers from Spensa herself, which allows Sanderson to develop her to the fullest in this book.

Another component of the book I enjoyed greatly was the conflict Sanderson creates in the atmosphere. There are numerous levels to this, which deserves some appreciation. The first is of course, the conflict between the Krell and the DDF, which plays out in a very strategic set of wars. The second, is the conflict between Spensa and everyone around her – who doesn’t believe she is worthy of flying: either because of the fact that her father was a coward, or because she possesses a “defect”. Sanderson attempts to weave the two together in the conclusion – which I don’t particularly enjoy, but we’ll get to that later. The last, is the conflict Sensa senses in herself. Continuously driven by her fear of being labeled a “coward”, she resists using the term, and finds herself confused, at several junctures about whether her actions smell of fear, or of “cowardice”. This emotional conflict is a marvelous layer to the plot, which I think drove the narrative in this book.

Finally, Sanderson seems to have done some research before writing. I think the space opera elements of Skyward, in terms of the machinery and weaponry involved, is not any that’s present in literature today. The schematic drawings provided in-book were super fun to peruse through (although I feel like that’s something the publishing house added), the detailing was excellent. However, at times it felt like Sanderson got trapped in a pit of overusing the phrase “g-force” to describe any sensation Spensa felt in her Poco jet. The level of research I think tells most when it comes to M-Bot, which is a figment of his imagination, but I think, the funniest character in the book, with the wittiest one-liners. M-Bot’s technological prowess is phenomenal. Considering this is the first book in the series, I’m really hoping for more of M-Bot in later books to come. And more Doomslug.

Now, the negatives.

See, for all the joy Spensa the character gave me, I didn’t really understand several parts of her world. A conversation with a friend revealed that we were both equally clueless about how her world functions. To me, this is a big deviation from Artemis, which despite it’s own flaws, did a phenomenal job of world building. You almost had no questions to ask. Here, you’re left wondering how exactly/where exactly that world fits into our understanding of the galaxy, which I think is a bit problematic. Moreover, the lack of world building is an issue because this is the first book in the series. It feels like Sanderson lacked clarity about what he envisaged the world to be like. The first book, for me, is really important to gauge whether or not I’m going to be hooked to the series. Good first-books balance plot development and world-building really well, and Sanderson is capable of this: he shows us that through The Final Empire. This, however, falls flat in comparison. As a consequence, it feels like descriptions of the world in future books in the series are afterthoughts/additions to help plot flow better.

The second thing I disliked was the ending. I’m still actually quite confused about what actually transpired – because while I understood the action taking place on-ground/in-space, I didn’t understand the layering that Sanderson had done – in terms of Spensa’s final interaction with her mother/grandmother. It left a lot to be explained – something I’m hoping comes out in the next few books. I’m quite certain that it’s meant to be vague, to allow for development later in the series. The level of vagueness though, was a little too much.

To conclude: absolutely thrilling, fast-paced book. Great plot, amazing characters. Vague attempt to be profound at the end, unclear world.

You see my confusion? This is a 3.5 dilemma situation.

A friend of mine offered some good insight. I think this, unlike Mistborn, is meant for the younger side of the YA spectrum audience. An enjoyable read, but one I’m okay skipping out on. Which is sad, because Space stuff is usually right up my alley.

The Astonishing Colour of After | Emily X.R. Pan

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

The Astonishing Colour of After,
by Emily X.R. Pan
Published by Little, Brown Books (2018)
Rating: ***** 

Don’t let the number of chapters or pages in this book fool you. It’s a fast-read. Page-turning, emotionally engaging, and gripping, you’ll find yourself wondering where the time went as you finish. If you’re looking to get out of a reading slump, and fall in love with good writing again, this is a great starting point.

The story follows Leigh Sanders, a half-Taiwanese, half-American girl, as she struggles to cope with loss. On the same day she kisses the boy she’s pined over for years, her mother, Dory, commits suicide. At first the grief is overwhelming. She feels trapped in her childhood home with her distant father and the bloodstain marking her mother’s demise haunting her thoughts. Then, the night before the funeral, Leigh is roused from her nightmares by a huge crimson bird calling her name. She knows immediately the bird is her mother, the whys and hows brushed aside in the face a daughter’s longing for her mom. The plot then takes us to Leigh’s discovery of family she never knew, and her journey of “moving on” from an event she struggles to talk about or understand. All the while, her desperation to make contact with her mother once more drives her between the fantastical and the real, making this a journey unlike any other.

There’s a lot of plot depth to the book, which deserves a bit of analysis.

The first is the theme of identity. Leigh’s identity is clearly complex – she’s half-Asian and half-white, and Pan brings this out by describing how society views her. The Americans call her “exotic”, while the Taiwanese call her “hunxie”/”mixed blood”. Through these individual instances, Pan is able to portray the otherization that mixed-race people usually feel, without a strong connection to either cultural group. This conflict is also given a new layer by the presence of Axel, who is half-Filipino, and half-Puerto Rican. Their friendship and understanding, and their journey of family discovery points to the fact that both characters find comfort in each other – because there’s no other place they fit in.

The second, is how Pan tackles mental health. Now, the conversation on mental health has improved drastically – people are now more comfortable to discuss it in society, but Asian countries are notorious for their inability to accept diagnosed mental health illnesses as being real. There’s an ignorance in Asian society, which Pan is able to describe very realistically. Leigh struggles to use the word “depression”, unable to admit to herself that her mother suffers from the same. The suicide that takes place is without a note, and is committed by OD-ing on antidepressants, and several episodes are described in great detail in the novel. Pan is able to explain depression as it really is – difficult to understand, tough to explain and articulate. The biggest thing Pan achieves is that she doesn’t display “continuous sadness” as equal to depression, something I admired after I finished the book. Another achievement lies in steering away from psychonalysis or patient-blaming/patient-shaming. There’s no sugarcoating of the condition, or of death. It’s difficult, but the truth of depression is just that, and Pan’s judicious use of words deserves credit.

The third is art. Now, I wasn’t sure whether to highlight this as a theme within the book, but there’s layers to this which deserves some amount of description. Leigh, Axel, Caro, and Dory, are all artists. Each, unique, and each, with a different connection to their art. Leigh’s father, is an American academic. Stereotypes lead us to believe that strict Asian parents undermine art, viewing it as being a gateway to University, or a skill that deserves mastering purely for the purpose of mastery. What Pan does is flip the stereotype, by showing a large majority of Leigh’s social circle being pleased with art as a career choice, while Leigh’s father attempts to track her to become more “serious” and asks her questions about her future. That narrative was one I found incredibly interesting to read. It creates a tension in the familial relationship that persists throughout the novel, right until the very end. Why I believe art is a theme is also because of how well Pan is able to use colour throughout the entire book. Just like shades on a palette, I learnt about emotions I didn’t know I could ever feel – and the correlation between colour and emotion will strike a chord with any reader. It’s use as a device for me was not distracting, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Finally, the fantastic imagery and fantasy elements deserve a lot of praise. The plot is very tight, and the fantasy weaves very smoothly with plot developments taking place in reality. Pan’s conclusion hits the heart hard, describing the truth of experience and memory unlike anyone else I’ve read. Reading the book reminded me a lot of the Disney movie Coco. It incited similar emotions in me, I guess.

My only qualm with the book was the romantic side of the story. Romance sells, but in parts, the romantic uneasiness felt out of place. The conclusion to the romantic arc within the book was predictable and well built-up. It’s pace at the end, however, was rushed, and artificial. No natural love story progresses like that. There’s a lot more conversation – one that I would have loved to see the protagonists engage in. The book leaves a few things unsaid, which might annoy some readers.

All in all, a must-read, quick-read. Will make you feel things. Would recommend.

Sadie | Courtney Summers

Tejas RaoLeave a comment

Sadie
by Courtney Summers
Published by Wednesday Books (2018)
Rating: **** 

This is an atypical read for me largely because it isn’t a book that I would buy off of shelves if I merely read the blurb. The reason I chose to read this book is that one of my friends absolutely loved it, and recommended that I give it a try, which is never something I’m averse to. This is a fast-read, but there’s a couple of warnings I’d like to put at the start of my review, so you can stop reading in case you get triggered. The book isn’t happy in any sense. It is not a book that builds up to a happy ending, and there is no moment where I caught myself smiling while reading it. It’s an incredibly serious read. It discusses several themes that are difficult to speak about in society. Rather, it highlights experiences that contain social stigma attached to them, and lead to victim-shaming culture. My trigger warnings include: murder, suicide, child prostitution, paedophilia, sexual abuse, and drug abuse.

With that being said, let’s examine the text.

Sadie follows the story of one dead girl, one missing girl, and a quest for revenge. Nineteen-year-old Sadie is determined to find who she believes to be her younger sister Maddie’s killer. With few clues to go on, she decides to embark on a journey to find him and make him pay for what he did. This is what the overarching plot is.

It seems pretty straightforward, and perhaps a story that could simply be described as a mystery – with Sadie acting as detective. But Summers manages to achieve a lot more with her writing. The novel is told in two distinct time-periods, and distinct points of view, which help with how the plot is built. The first is Sadie’s point of view, told in the past tense, with her tracking down her sister’s killer – a man who knows how to disappear better than most. The second is West McCray’s true crime radio show transcript called The Girls, where he attempts to find Sadie by following the little information the police offer him. These are very, very unique points of view, which help draw a very human connection to everything that transpires – something that stuck with me at the end of the book. Society reports events like these very narrative-like and with a victim-blaming angle to most of the reportage around it. By choosing to give the “victim” here a voice, and providing the voice of somebody trying to find her, desperately, Summers is able to portray nuances in emotion, and engage the reader in a way that makes you question every character’s motive and motivation. This sense of anticipation and suspense is really heightened in the last 20 pages, which I think could have been published separately – they’re the most logical (albeit dreadful) conclusion to a story of this kind.

The conclusion of the book is worth the read because of how realistic it is. It’s the only thing that makes sense in a world like ours. And you’ll hate yourself for knowing how Sadie’s story ends, but Summers’ manages to draw you in, page after page.

What I’m most impressed by is Summers’ ability to write a podcast transcript. I like true crime podcasts and shows as much as anybody – and most media houses seem to thrive on the market. Very few are any good. Writing a podcast transcript is an art that this author really nails down. The idea of a podcast like narrative really set the tone for West McCray’s voice. I often found myself reading the narrative the way I’d narrate a true crime podcast – which added a new layer of engagement to the reading experience. McCray is an underappreciated character on Goodreads – and I would’ve appreciated a bit more about him in the book. I also docked a star because in places, Summers’ writing style can lead to a frustratingly slow pace and a lot of artificially manufactured tension.

Overall, I think it’s worth reading because it forces you to think about society. It’s also a book that’ll make you pray that we become better as a world – because it seems ridiculous that we’ve got so much nonsense going down. The book is raw, which means that it forces you to accept the truth – no matter how uncomfortable that may make you feel.