No matter how much I rave about this book in this review, I still don't think I will be able to get across how much I loved this book.

When Tara dies after a prank to scare her by a group of girls that hate her goes horribly wrong, Alice is left with a whole lot of guilt weighing down on her because she can't tell anyone what she has done. However, she doesn't know exactly what happened as she wasn't there when Tara died and she wants to find out. She also finds herself falling in love with Tara's younger brother, Jack and soon she is going to have I tell him the truth.

The first thing I loved about this book was the storyline. Although you are almost immediately given what happened to Tara and why, it makes you want to keep reading because more things are gradually revealed and you want to know how it ends and what happen to all the characters.

Secondly is the characters themselves. Alice herself is a very strong character who tries her best to deal with the guilt and has realistic flaws that make her come to life in the imagination. Generally when reading books I don't like the female characters as they are often portrayed as flawless, ridiculously stupid and pathetic. Alice was a fantastic character in that she was strong, yet obviously flawed and acted as I would have thought appropriately for the situation that she was in. Jack was also a brilliant character; he was not the obviously perfect popular footballer that fictional girls always seem to fall for, but original and adorable with a passion for dinosaurs which I thought was very sweet. I also liked the father who was very dad-y and her best friend Cass who was original and had good friendship qualities. There was one girl who was portrayed as innocent, yet it soon became clear she wasn't and this was done very cleverly as you expected her to be the victim, and those that you hate at the beginning had a lot of depth to them that showed you there true characteristics underneath. I think that Cat Clarke put a lot of effort in attempt to one up with realistic characters and succeeded.

Thirdly I thought that it was very realistic and could very well have happened. It was also very original, and though I have read a vast variety of books, was completely different to anything I had previously read. It was one of those books that is creepy but it doesn't matter because it is do thrilling and page turning and compelling and plain fantastic. I loved the ending but I definitely need a sequel to fill in all my unanswered questions. I thought that I enjoyed Entangled by Cat Clarke but this is a new level: one of the best books I have read in a while!

Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!