It happened when Sophie was seventeen-years-old – the day that changed her life. The day, her best-friend, Mina, was murdered in front of her. No-one believes Sophie when she tries to tell the truth, they all believe it was a drug deal that ended with bad consequences. The only people that know the truth are Sophie and the murderer. Sophie is determined to hunt him down once she finally gets out of rehab, a place she was forced to go to because of a drug addiction she had already overcome.

Sophie and Mina had secrets, secrets they sometimes wouldn't even tell each other. Like why Mina wanted to visit Booker's Point that night. Why would Mina only tell Sophie part of the truth unless she knew it was dangerous? Sophie has to find out everything about what Mina was doing and the real reason for everything that happened that night. But finding out the truth is going to be dangerous.

Far From You is a great murder mystery. It was quite unique as well because with most murder mysteries you have a long list of suspects and of murderers, but whilst reading Far From You I realised I didn't have a list. There was no one I suspected as all the characters were made to seem really nice or just emotionally broken. There was no one you thought bad enough to commit the murder. The mystery of the story didn't feel like the most gripping part of the book, the most gripping part of the book for me was reading about Sophie's past and all the things she had shared with Mina; all the stuff they had planned for the future and everything they had experienced together in the past. But it was also the most heart-wrenching thing in the entire book, because when it jumped back to the past and made you read everything about Mina, I got so attached to her that when it was the chapters based on the present, I remembered that I had been reading the past and that Mina was dead and it would upset me all over again.

I felt like I could relate to both Sophie and Mina during the book and I love it when you can relate characteristics from a book character to people you actually know or even yourself – although if you can relate the characters to someone in your life it's a way of making the story even more sad because you feel you are living the story instead of reading the story.

Far From You brought up things that made me like it that much more such as: home-schooling, teen pregnancy and the difficulties of being gay/bisexual. It's always good when books bring up issues or just things that aren't that common like home-education, it makes you feel like you are learning something but it's not teaching you in a boring way.

I have tried really hard and failed to think of books I can compare Far From You to. If there's a book you could compare it to I haven't read it. Far From You is just a book that you can't compare to other books, it's just unique.
At the end of this book my heart actually broke, it just happened out of nowhere. I was reading it and then I was in tears and I felt so miserable because the story got to me so much, losing someone that meant that much to you... I just can't stand the idea of it and because of that I just fell apart! The emotion of Sophie's character just overwhelmed me and it was too much. It was heart-breaking and I think I will remember that 'scene' for the rest of my life, it got to me and it will never be something I could forget.

But don't let me put you down, this book teaches you to never take anything or anyone for granted and it's an incredible book. Any novel that can make you feel such emotion has to be a success right? I think that's surely what Tess Sharpe set out to do: to write a successful book that would make people really think and be grateful for what they have and who they have and to live the best life they can, while they can. If Tess Sharpe wanted to make me feel so helpless to a situation that didn't even exist, she succeeded! I was so desperate to jump into the story and comfort Sophie and help her through everything she was going through, because I knew I would want someone to help me if I was in Sophie's state.

Don't expect to pick up this book and place it back on the shelf and forget it once you've finished because you won't. You will pick it up and it will tear you apart and you will feel as wrecked as if it was your own best-friend that had been murdered, and no matter what you do you will never forget it. But it's not a book I regret reading, because it now has a place in my heart and hopefully it will find a place in yours too. I will be rating this, book five stars! How could I not?

Tess Sharpe is an incredible author she knows exactly what's going to leave a mark and how to make her story stick. I'm not sure she could have written a better debut novel.

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