FAR FROM YOU
By Tess Sharpe
Published: April 8th, Disney Hyperion
The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick.
The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery.
After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina and about the secret they shared.
My Thoughts:
When I went to ALAMW in January, FAR FROM YOU was the book I had to come home with. I'd been intrigued ever since I'd followed Tess Sharpe on Twitter and read her thoughts about writing. "This is a girl who knows what she's doing when it comes to craft," I thought. FAR FROM YOU is proof.
Tess weaves a secret romance into mystery and thrill, and skillfully packs emotion into each and every scene (even the ones that involve threatening someone with bear mace!). Sophie is a fierce character and so three dimensional. I commend Tess for presenting a bi-sexual character so well onto the YA scene, but Sophie is so many other things as a heroine: a loyal friend, a strong-headed daughter, a struggling addict, a reluctant cripple.
Lately, a big trend in publishing is non-linear stories, told in a back and forth motion from past and present. With these stories, I get really confused easily and forget where I am in the story (stopping to think "is this past or present?"). Tess navigates around this well, by keeping her chapters short (most are only two or three pages) and grounding the reader at the beginning of each chapter by marking not only how many months ago something happened, but how old the character was at the time.
Don't miss out on this April debut. I'm excited to see more writing from Tess. I think she has the potential to be a strong force in YA.
I need to add this!
ReplyDeleteWhat you said in your review is really helpful. I wasn't aware that the non-linear stories are a trend now. I've written a couple stories that way, years ago, but have worried about the using the whole flashback thing too much since it's supposedly bad. But I guess it's bad if it's done wrong.
ReplyDeleteWith my stories, one takes place over 24 hours, the other over 5 days. And they need to be that time, but I also need what happens in the past to be explained. Not just little backstory snippets, but chapters in between. So seeing this is a great help for when I go back to those stories.