Author: Cat Clarke
Publisher: Quercus
Release Date: 6 Jan 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1849163941
Synopsis
The same questions whirl round and round in my head: What does he want from me? How could I have let this happen? AM I GOING TO DIE? 17-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with table, pens and paper - and no clue how she got there. As Grace pours her tangled life onto the page, she is forced to remember everything she's tried to forget. There's falling hopelessly in love with the gorgeous Nat, and the unravelling of her relationship with her best friend Sal. But there's something missing. As hard as she's trying to remember, is there something she just can't see? Grace must face the most important question of all. Why is she here? A story of dangerous secrets, intense friendships and electrifying attraction.
My Review
My first thoughts. What? Weird! Did I like it? I have no idea. So random.
I honestly don't really know what I thought about this book, something about it made me want to keep reading, in fact I struggled to put it down. Read it in one evening, with just an hours break in the middle, when I had to put it down to get some things done.
I first spotted this when I was doing the booksale trolley at work, this book had been withdrawn and was going onto the trolley. I always keep an eye out for Teen/YA books to see if anything good is there and this caught my eye. I read the synopsis but it didn't sound like my sort of book so I put it down, then for some reason took it off again. In my break I sat and read the first chapter and I was instantly hooked. Already in the middle of another book I put it down in my locker. I almost forgot about it but then one of my friends mentioned it and said it was a gripping read.
I had a week off last week and brought the books from my locker home and settled down with this Sunday night. I wanted something fairly short as I was waiting for my new Skulduggery Pleasant book to arrive so wanted a filler until it got here.
This is not my usual sort of read, it's quite depressing when you think about it. But for some reason I could not put it down and I actually felt quite hopeful whilst reading it, like maybe Grace would be OK and solve her problems, or at least learn how to deal with them.
This book was strange, if I could only use one word to sum it up, that would be the word I would pick. It starts with Grace waking up in a small room furnished only with a bed, table and chair. And an En-Suite. Everything is white, the walls, the furniture, her clothes, the only colour in the room comes from the bic pens on the table. Pens she can use to fill the stacks/reams of plain paper with her writing.
She is being held there by Ethan, but he doesn't seem to want to hurt her. He brings her gorgeous food, talks to her and encourages her to write. So she decides to write down everything that lead her to this point. Starting with the last thing she can remember. The night she tried to kill herself.
Suicide is usually something that puts me off a book but for some reason I still can't explain I wanted to know more about Grace and why she would want to do this.
You find out all about her family past, her best friend, boyfriends and school life. Everything leads up to that one moment, and then the moment she meets Ethan.
I was most confused about Ethan, I had a feeling he wasn't what he seemed but didn't see how he could be anything else. I had suspicions that grew and ended up being true. I think I'm getting good at guessing the outcome of books! But I was intrigued how it would be carried off and it was actually done very well.
It's quite hard to talk about this book without giving everything away.
But I have to say I did guess the best friend situation quite early on. Not a big surprise to me near the end, I'd already figured it out.
I can't say I particularly enjoyed the book but I didn't dislike it either, it was just addictive, totally 100% gripping, as in walk round the room bumping into things whilst you have your nose in the pages. But I still can't explain why I felt like that. Grace wasn't a particularly endearing character, in fact she is quite annoying and whiny at times and I sometimes wanted to tell her to grow up, but I still cared what happened to her. It's obviously something to do with the writing, it just pulls you in, Cat Clarke obviously has a way with words, a real talent.
She made a usually unappealing story to me, a subject matter I would never read, become entrancing. She's got some powerful writing there. And although from looking at her other books they are not my sort of story either, I am tempted to read them just to see if she maintains that standard of writing.
So overall, strange, very strange, but completely un-put-downable.
I would say that it does contain sex, drugs, alcohol, self-harm and suicide. Lots of issues not suitable for younger readers.
My Rating
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