2 out of 5 stars (and that's being generous)
WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT AHEAD.
I will say that it did keep me hooked with the suspense and mystery which is always good, although sometimes only in the short-term if it is anti-climatic, which was the case here of course. However other than that I just found it all really annoying, especially with the way Maddy ends up with Adrian not long after her sister's death which just bloody infuriated me, like they could have at least gave it time and then shown them together months later if they had too, but this was just inappropriate given the circumstances. But what really annoyed me most about it was the way that a love interest just HAD to be shoehorned into the story, that she just HAD to end up in a romantic relationship, not even a nice, new true friendship to make things nicer and happier for her after having been friendless for so long (or at least without any true friends) but of course it had to be a frigging guy who had to make everything good for her again, who had to come in and "rescue her" and that just really annoyed me. It seems that of course every female protagonist needs a love interest to fulfil her life and especially in this case a guy to save her and make her feel happy and validated, with her even needing this bloody Adrian guy to tell her how beautiful and amazing she is and how much he loves her, because of course she needed a guy who she was romantically involved with to tell her that rather than herself, and that really annoyed me. I am so sick of every female protagonist of every book I read just needing a love interest to fulfil their life and make them feel happy and complete and validated, even when it doesn't fit into the story, being ultimately shoehorned it, but this was by far the worst example I have come across, especially given that she was grieving and bereaved at the time and that she actually had this guy assure her just how beautiful and amazing she was for her to feel validated and better with an increased self-worth. Their whole romance annoyed me, as it was clearly just there because of course our female protagonist just needed a romance with a gorgeous guy and we couldn't have a story without romance can we even if the story has nothing to do with romance itself, finding it completely unnecessary and that it would have been much better if it had been a new friendship she was developing instead of a romance. Adrian was just incredibly annoying, needy and clingy, as he knew Maddy needed time yet still pestered her and wanted them to be together. Also what 17/18 year olds speak like that about all that deep, cheesy love stuff with "I love you the way you are" etc. This story was supposed to be about two sisters, WHY did the romance have to be shoehorned in, trying to take the focus away from it?! This all really annoyed and disappointed me.
Oh and the whole thing with the friend (or sister in this case) spotting her friend talking to the guy she liked and assuming that she was getting it on with him and therefore jumping to conclusions and getting mad at her for it was very cliched indeed.
Also the build-up was a real let-down and anti-climatic with us being misled into thinking it was a murder mystery, with the real twist being that it was the other sister who died, the one who is "narrating" the story in present day who we're led to believe is the one who has survived is actually the one who died, with the one who we're told is who died being the one who actually survived and is just pretending to be her sister, deluding herself into thinking she is her. I mean I guess this was well done from a psychological perspective but the story therefore could have done with being made a bit shorter as a result, without all the murder mystery with there being no murderer after all.
Something that also really annoyed me was how bloody many times Maddy mentioned Tory's obsession with cats, like how she went on about them on the bus, how she had a cat themed jumper, a cat-themed bag, a cat-themed pillow, was drawing cats in her sketchbook and had cat hair all over her car seat, like OK we get it she's obsessed with cats, clearly just as much as you are with mentioning it, and I just don't get why this had to be emphasised on so much, and as a (major) cat lover myself I have to say I was quite offended by all this constant scoffing at someone being a cat lover, like they were labelling her as a likely "Crazy Cat Lady". It just didn't add to anything so I don't know why she had to refer to her obsession with cats like 10 times, with girls having obsessions with cats being stigmatised enough as it is, so why mention it this many damn times. It doesn't mean she's strange, as she was constantly labelled as for being a cat lover, just a bit quirky, and maybe she was a bit too obsessive with a bit of a one-track mind, but why judge and go on and on about it like that, making you the obsessive one. Maddy was one to talk too with how obsessive and whiny she could get, with it being hard to sympathise with her at times as a result.
So yeah, while I was hooked by the suspense and mystery and interested in the psychology, I was ultimately disappointed by the shoehorned romance and implication/depiction of a girl needing a guy to "rescue" her, assuring her that she is beautiful just the way she is and giving her all the validation she needs, not to mention how inappropriate the timing was with the circumstances. This just annoyed me so much.
Oh and the whole thing with the friend (or sister in this case) spotting her friend talking to the guy she liked and assuming that she was getting it on with him and therefore jumping to conclusions and getting mad at her for it was very cliched indeed.
Also the build-up was a real let-down and anti-climatic with us being misled into thinking it was a murder mystery, with the real twist being that it was the other sister who died, the one who is "narrating" the story in present day who we're led to believe is the one who has survived is actually the one who died, with the one who we're told is who died being the one who actually survived and is just pretending to be her sister, deluding herself into thinking she is her. I mean I guess this was well done from a psychological perspective but the story therefore could have done with being made a bit shorter as a result, without all the murder mystery with there being no murderer after all.
Something that also really annoyed me was how bloody many times Maddy mentioned Tory's obsession with cats, like how she went on about them on the bus, how she had a cat themed jumper, a cat-themed bag, a cat-themed pillow, was drawing cats in her sketchbook and had cat hair all over her car seat, like OK we get it she's obsessed with cats, clearly just as much as you are with mentioning it, and I just don't get why this had to be emphasised on so much, and as a (major) cat lover myself I have to say I was quite offended by all this constant scoffing at someone being a cat lover, like they were labelling her as a likely "Crazy Cat Lady". It just didn't add to anything so I don't know why she had to refer to her obsession with cats like 10 times, with girls having obsessions with cats being stigmatised enough as it is, so why mention it this many damn times. It doesn't mean she's strange, as she was constantly labelled as for being a cat lover, just a bit quirky, and maybe she was a bit too obsessive with a bit of a one-track mind, but why judge and go on and on about it like that, making you the obsessive one. Maddy was one to talk too with how obsessive and whiny she could get, with it being hard to sympathise with her at times as a result.
So yeah, while I was hooked by the suspense and mystery and interested in the psychology, I was ultimately disappointed by the shoehorned romance and implication/depiction of a girl needing a guy to "rescue" her, assuring her that she is beautiful just the way she is and giving her all the validation she needs, not to mention how inappropriate the timing was with the circumstances. This just annoyed me so much.
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