Unspoken

Unspoken is undoubtably one of the most moving and wonderful books I have read in a long time. It’s incredibly powerful – something about the prose and the characters and the setting stays with you long after you’ve out the book down and turned out the lights.

Kami’s character carries the book for me – she’s absolutely amazing. Quirky takes on a whole new meaning around her: she’s got this way about her that I adored, but I can see how it could be off-putting to those around her, and also to some readers. Kami is incredibly blunt, a trait that makes her so successful as a reporter I think. Her friend Angela is also unique – she has a penchant for napping everywhere and is really funny as well. For once I got to read about show more a female YA character with healthy relationships with her family and friends, and I loved it. In contrast, despite Kami’s constant awareness of Jared, I felt like I didn’t know Jared that well. Much of this stems from the fact that he acts in opposition to what Kami feels from him, and like her, I was continually confused. His cousin, Ash, was a lot more transparent and I was exasperated that Kami couldn’t figure him out!

BetweenJared and Ash, I have to say I prefer Jared. I know he’s more unstable and unsavoury than Ash, but something about Ash, and his perfect glory, kept bugging me throughout. I feel Jared is more honest, overall. The other Lynburns freaked me out a lot, regardless of whom we’re talking about. The twin sisters, Jared and Ash’s mothers, are really creepy and closed off, and I didn’t like the way they treated Kami. I actually really liked Ash’s father, he seems really nice. I was sorry for the way his story developed in the book.

Sorry-in-the-Vale (a weird name, yes, but once I got over that it was okay) is brought to life by Brennan’s lush writing. I didn’t have any difficulties imaging the town, its inhabitants and the creepy influence the Lynburns have on it. I loved the writing style: there is something very frank and open about the way the book is written. I think the book is paced well too, a bit like classical music that begins slowly, unassumingly, and then builds up into a crescendo. Upon reading it for a second time I have discovered a lot of hidden clues which I hadn’t on the first read, and now I’m even more in awe of Brennan’s writing skills. The clues, about everything, are there if you know what to look for!

As you can probably tell, I loved everything about this book, except for the fact that it ended, because now I need more. You should be desperately wanting to read Unspoken, you should be coveting it. I’ve ordered in the US hardcover version to look pretty on my shelves, since I had an e-ARC, and I’m looking forward to reading the sequel as soon as I can my hands on it!

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review.
You can read more of my reviews at Speculating on SpecFic. show less

This review was originally posted on Tea, Daydreams & Fairytales on the 12th September 2012.

Actual Star Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

“You’re crazy,” said her best friend, Angela, as the bell rang to signal five minutes before the first class on the first day back at school.
“They said that about all the great visionaries.”.
“You know who else they said it about?” Angela demanded. “All the actual crazy people.”

Every now and then you come across a book that completely blows you away and this is what Unspoken was for me. It was fun, witty and incredibly entertaining, it was a breath of fresh air in amongst a heap of super serious paranormal YA books. With a witty gothic vibe this world will just blow your mind with memorable banter show more between the characters and a super fun storyline that I challenge anyone to find boring!

The main character Kami is just brilliant - she is witty (I'm sorry in advance for how often I'll be using this word in my review), unstoppable and completely comfortable with being seen as a little bit crazy by the rest of the quaint small town Sorry-in-the-Vale. In fact all the characters in this book are wonderful, quirky and refreshing just making you want to find out more about them. Even the tiny characters have a real sense of completeness about them for example Kami's younger brothers the shy and serious ten year old called, Ten and the ADD manic lemonade addicted Tomo only a few sentences of air time yet you still feel a real sense of family and insight into their personalities. Her school paper project that has brought together a completely random group of personalities and created a sense of camaraderie is also wonderful and I especially love Angela the very gorgeous yet completely lazy side kick who is dragged along (never kicking and screaming as that would be too much effort) on all of Kami's escapades in exchange for cooked meals.

While it looks like there is going to be some major love triangle action happening in this book, romance isn't really that large a part of the premise and what romantic tension is included is well handled and uncliche'd. Jared is wonderful, complex and your never really sure if he is just a bad guy or a flawed softy hidden under a tough guy complex. I was erring on the side of a softy until he did something that left me a bit shocked at the end of this novel. There is some great chemistry between him and Kami which is further complicated by their mental link and I really really hope that these guys overcome all obstacles and manage to get together!

The other male lead Ash is your typical knight in shining armour hero type... or is he? Again this is another well multi layered character who doesn't stick to the standard YA cliche and I must say the date that Ash and Kami goes on had me giggling my head off - I just loved it! Jared you are a naughty naughty boy :)

Throughout the story you feel this ominous sense of evil with the Lynburns which is built from the get go and I wasn't dissapointed with how things ended up but boy what a cliffhanger! I really hope book 2 comes out soon because I'm dying to find out how things resolve. This is just a wonderful wonderful book and I think there are very few readers who wouldn't enjoy this one - the only reason it doesn't get a 5 star rating from me is that the ending is a little sudden, I like my books with a bit more wrap up then what we got in Unspoken.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Children's Books for providing me with a copy of this novel for review. Unspoken has just been released on the 11th September 2012 and can be purchased via the links below. show less

ARGH THAT CLIFFHANGER. THAT WAS A CRUEL, CRUEL WAY TO END THE BOOK.

I just finished it two hours ago. I still have strong feelings.

I love the way all the relationships play out -- how being able to read someone's mind doesn't automatically make you understand what they mean, and all the different secrets people who love each other hide from one another. Kami and Jared's relationship was painfully and believably complicated by what seems to be this gift.

Probably my favorite part, though, was the friendship between Kami, Angela, and Holly. It would have been very easy for Kami's other relationships to get neglected in favor of her all-consuming thing with Jared, but Angela's friendship was just as important, and I loved watching her show more friendship develop with Holly. (Holly and Angela were also really, really sweet and parts involving them tended to be my favorite.)

THAT CLIFF-HANGER, THOUGH. ARGH. It's one thing to have a cliff-hanger like that when it's a tv show and you know you're just going to have to wait a week. But a year? That's just cruel. show less

Aspiring journalist and high school student Kami Glass lives in the small town of Sorry-in-the-Vale where she runs the school newspaper, hangs out with her friend Angela and talks to the boy in her head. When the mysterious Lynburn family moves back into their mansion on a hill overlooking the town, dead animals are discovered in the woods surrounding the area. As Kami starts investigating, she is swept up into a world of ancient secrets, which are linked to the history of Sorry-in-the-Vale as well as Jared, the boy in her head who has now become real.

This is an incredibly fun and quirky book in the vein of Diana Wynne Jones as well as Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys. At first, I had reservations about this book, despite seeing all show more the rave reviews of it, since the constant witty banter between the characters sometimes felt very inauthentic. But as the plot develops, the author slows down with the jokes, and the story becomes a lot more compelling. I was drawn in slowly by the mystery and the relationship between Kami and Jared. The plot is very slow, the mystery only revealing itself bit by bit but in a very compelling way. While the beginning was a bit rough, by about a third of the way into the story, I had difficulty putting the book down.

The characters are difficult to connect with at first, but they grow on you. By the end of the book, I really loved them all, especially the girls. I can't decide who I like more, Angela or Holly, both of whom break the typical stereotypes about hot girls found in many YA novels. I also enjoyed the portrayal of their strong friendships with each other.

I loved the weird relationship between Kami and Jared-- it's an interesting exploration of what happens when you met the person who knows everything about you, and in a way, it kind of skewers the cliches surrounding the idea of soulmates. Kami and Jared are kind of soulmates in a way, but they're also incredibly awkward around each other. I can't predict how the author plans on dealing with their strange connection and what the outcome will be for them. While they are the obvious romantic couple, right now it's difficult to see how they could possibly have an actual relationship with each other.

All in all, this is a solid book, a refreshing standout among the hordes of carbon copy paranormal YA novels. I look forward to the sequel. show less

Oh my Goddess. Really.
As I knew would happen, once I picked up this book I couldn't put it down until I finished it. It is nothing short of brilliant. And that ending! "When is the next one coming?" I asked. How will I endure until then?
The story doesn't falter once. There is love and hate, viciousness and kindness, fear and beautiful moments. One minute I was laughing and the next I was gritting my teeth. At the end I burst into tears. I really can't wait to read more of this story.
And as a side note - a YA novel not in first-person-present-tense!
On all fronts, way to go, Sarah.

I found this unsatisfying. It didn't really go hard enough in any of the directions it chose, and I found the narrative - and the dialogue in particular - way too glib and facile. (Worst offender: you do not get two and a half lines of sparkling witticism when you're choking having been half-drowned.) Don't get me wrong - I laughed out loud numerous times. But there was too much of it. Too often.

Actually, my biggest problem with the facility of the dialogue is that, for me, most often it hid, rather than showed, the characters. They were all so busy Joss-Whedoning at each other that I never felt like I was getting close to any of them, not even Kami, in whose head we're ostensibly travelling, nor Jared, in whose head she's ostensibly show more travelling.

This was a big problem because it minimised my emotional involvement in the turmoil of the book. I assume, from the way things shook out, that I'm supposed to believe that Kami is desperately in love with Jared, but I honestly never felt it. Not even a little bit. (Though in the spirit of full disclosure, I admit that may have a tiny bit to do with the fact that Rusty is so very much my favourite sort of male character that I was wanting Kami to hook up with him from approximately five words after he arrived on the page.)

Which is a shame, because I really liked what it was giving us about the ways in which living in each other's heads was actually uncomfortable and unnatural and rather terrifying. That was a really good and sensible element and I am all in favour of that sort of thing. But with that uncertain overlay of Twu Wuv, I felt... well, uncertain. That's what I mean about not going in any of its directions hard enough. The romance wasn't strong enough for me to swoon, but it wasn't committed enough to the platonic path for me to get really into that storyline/relationship either.

And without a hard grasp on that to drive the story, I found it didn't really do anything terribly exciting in its development. There was a lot of teenage stuff which, as I've previously said, eh. (Though I totally called Angela and Holly early on, which does not at all diminish my DELIGHT at the way it all turned out. Though Angela and Rusty had better turn out to be elite witch-hunters, because honestly, two trained martial arts young people abandoned by their parents in this village? It's a little fucking convenient/over-elaborate, innit?)

So this is the bottom line: I liked its vampish gothicky qualities, but it felt more like a flirtatious pass at them than a serious commitment. I liked the romance (it was so frustrating that Kami and Jared wouldn't be fucking honest with each other, if understandable, let alone with me the reader) but it didn't go at it hard enough to satisfy on that front. And I found the rest of it too slick and substanceless to really engage me. It gets three stars only because it does it well; it's very readable. show less

So I was warned that this book made one feel *feels*. But I was not really cognizant that those feels would be anger and despair about the thing that happens on the very last page and then the book would end abruptly when something important was about to happen. So...if you have problems with cliffhangers perhaps you would rather wait until the following book in the series is somewhere close to existing and being available. As it is, it was just CRUEL.

Still, if she hadn't made the characters and the story matter so much, it wouldn't have been so heartbreaking and rage-causing. So there's that. It was a good story, with fun, oft witty teenage characters and a good mystery, and then it punches you in the gut so that you wished you had the show more next bit right away. It might have been less devastating if I hadn't stayed up half the night to finish it...maybe. show less