Review: Entangled

Entangled by Cat Clarke

publisher: Quercus Books

released: January 6th, 2011 (UK - no US release)

paperback, 372 pages

intended audience: young adult (recommend 14+*)

source: from publisher for review

rating:


description:
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 a table, pens and paper - and no clue how she got here.

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 unraveling 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 dark secrets, intense friendship and electrifying attraction.

Review: Entangled was altogether amazing. It sucks you in immediately with this bizarre mystery of why this girl wakes up in a stark white room with just a bed, a bathroom, a table with only pen and paper on it---and a mysterious strange man, her kidnapper she assumes. Apparently he expects her to write,..but why? So she sits down to write her story, everything she remember that led up to her ending up here. The story switches from Grace's writings about her past and her dilemma to figure out who her captor really is and what he wants with her.

I immediately liked Grace's voice. Its a funny thing to say, but I tend to love books written in a voice and wit that is so decidedly british. Her inner dialogue was both hilarious and biting. With the entire story being told through what she writes while being held in this little room, all her emotions are laid out on the page. She tells about being in love and her intense friendship with her best girlfriend, Sal, who is in most ways her complete opposite but just as troubled. She tells about her struggling relationship with her mother and the father who disappeared without a trace. We go with Grace on a roller coaster of finding love and heartbreak, drinking, and cutting---the only way she can think of to dull her pain. It's gritty and real and poignant. One minute I was laughing at Grace's smart-ass remarks, the next I was in tears. As the story hurls toward it's conclusion, the emotion in her words is so raw and intense that it reads like freeform poetry.

This is not one to be missed! I hope that eventually it will get picked up internationally and be available in the US and everywhere---but for now, it's worth the wait to order it from Book Depository (because I don't know about you, but it always seems to take 10-12 days to get to me) or wherever you can find that will ship from the UK. This is a downright brilliant debut.

*Reason for 14+ recommendation: there are several sexual situations and the main character is drunk in several scenes.

A quick thanks to Parul at Quercus for sending this to me all the way in the states to review. I know you made an exception in sending to a US blogger, and I am so honored and grateful!

Visit Cat Clarke's website here.

Purchase Entangled at BookDepository.com.

Trailer: