Monday 23 January 2012

Entangled by Cat Clarke

Title: Entangled
Author: Cat Clarke
Publisher: Quercus Books
Publication date: 6th January 2011
Paperback: 372 pages
Book Source: Bought
My rating: 7/10

Summary:

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?

Seventeen-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with a 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 in the relationship with her best friend Sal. But there's something missing.

Grace must face the most important question of all. Why is she here?

My thoughts:

I've been waiting to read this one for quite a while now so it had been sitting on my TBR shelf for a bit collecting dust!

I have to say straight off that this book probably isn't for everyone. It was a pretty heavy read in that the protagonist has a lot of things going on that are hard to deal with. Sometimes she did seem to be a bit harsh and not very loveable so I could tell straight off that some readers will just plain not like her. For me, she was the kind of character where I have to decide in every difficult situation whether to scold her or give her a big hug. She made mistakes and dealt with them in a bad way but in some ways that's what made her more relatable and realistic. I would by lying if I said I've never done something stupid in relation to a bad event and so has everyone else. It happens.

In that respect, Grace was a pretty strong character. In others she wasn't - it sort of makes this read like marmite - you either love it or hate it.

As for the actual plot I really liked it. It was a different take to books dealing with suicide and self-harm - a really different take. I found myself reading it all in no time and enjoying it immensely.

I think what made it so easy to read was the way it was written. The main story is told through Grace's point of view whilst she was writing about the hardships she's been through. So it was sort of similar to diary entries but not at the same time.

What let the book down for me though was the ending. I was so disappointed. I really got excited towards the end because there was so much guess work involved in this book that I was looking forward to finding out the answers. The problem was, there wasn't enough answers. I felt like the story was unresolved because I didn't fully find out what happens to Grace or any of the other characters. Even though some books do have endings like that where you sort of leave it to your imagination - this one felt like it was just too important not to know because it was so character orientated. The whole plot was based on the story of the main characters and their relationships and to not find out what happened about those relationships was disappointing.

Overall though I recommend this read. It deals with difficult issues in a unique way and it's a thoroughly engrossing read.

Cat Clarke:

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Challenges this book counts towards:

  1. 100 Books In A Year
  2. New Author Challenge
  3. 2012 TBR Pile Reading Challenge


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