Author: Cyn Balog
Release date: November 1, 2016
Secrets. Obsession. Murder. Victoria is about to discover just how dangerous it can be to lose yourself.
Victoria Zell doesn't fit in, but she's okay with that. All she needs is the company of her equally oddball boyfriend, Andrew. She doesn't care what anyone else thinks...until magnetic, charming, mysterious Z comes into her life, and she starts lying to everyone she knows in an effort to unravel his secrets.
And then something terrible happens. Someone is dead and it's time for Victoria to come clean. Interspersed with news clippings and police interviews, Victoria tells her story to Andrew, revealing her dark, horrible secrets...secrets that have finally come back to haunt her.
This was one of those books on NetGalley that kept calling to me and I finally requested it without any hope of getting it. When it showed up in my email a few days later, it took every shred of willpower that I have {very little, in fact} to not start reading it right away. I like to wait until it gets closer to the publishing date, but also I had already committed myself to It this month. I finished that yesterday, so yes, I read this book in two days. I honestly couldn't put it down.
Victoria is kind of weird, kind of quiet, and kind of the new kid, having just arrived at St. Ann's Catholic School. But she doesn't mind it so much. She's a good student and she has her agoraphobic boyfriend, Andrew, waiting for her at home whenever she does have a bad day. They're both a little weird, but they fit together beautifully, and they love each other deeply. But then a rock gets thrown into their well-oiled machine when Zachary Zimmerman, or just simply Z, shows up at St. Ann's and takes the seat next to Victoria. Thus begins a whirlwind friendship/romance between the two mysterious kids, one super popular, the other a mere ghost.
{Okay, I tried my best not to add SPOILERS, but just be careful going forward. There might be some SPOILERS.}
So, knowing what I know now, this book was a trip. Cyn Balog gives us bits and pieces of the crime in the form of police interviews, and intertwines all that with bits and pieces of both Victoria and Z's lives. Z is...a complete mystery. One moment, he's sweet and loving, and the next, he's gloomy and snappish. I couldn't fully trust him through this novel, and, by the end, I wasn't entirely sure I was supposed to. Z and Victoria were both crazy in their own way. Z had fallen on hard times and did what he had to do to get out of there, but, near the end, he begs Victoria to run away with him, to get out of Duchess and run...somewhere. The way he treats Victoria, too, is kind of alarming. Since she's not exactly socially adept, she ends up doing a lot of stupid things because some kids are nice to her {honestly, there are moments where you're cringing and yelling at her because you know what's happening}. Z turns his back on her at one point, after they've done something that pretty much solidifies their relationship in Victoria's mind, and messes with her head a bit, whether consciously or not, I'm not sure.
Victoria's crazy was a whole new world, and it's really hard to talk about without giving major spoilers, so I'm going to concentrate on what I felt before the end.
Victoria, even though she went to public school her whole life, feels sheltered. Her parents are super religious and Victoria deals with anxiety by using her pills. She's super innocent, barely understanding how to text and being cringeworthy when her peers ask her a question {like asking if an emoticon translates to "wanting to do it," and Victoria doesn't understand what "it" means}. She also kept trying to convince herself that Z was just a friend, even when he would shove her against the wall and kiss her. She's incredibly sweet and so quiet, but something just feels...off about her. Throughout the whole narrative, I kept wondering if I should trust her.
Having just finished It, a story involving children and the power of friendships, I was a bit emotional. I expected to read this book and figure out a mystery, maybe with some scary parts thrown in. What I did not expect was to be in tears by the end, totally wrung out and utterly devastated for these two kids. It was one of those endings where the air built up inside of me and then, when the climax finally comes, I deflated like a balloon. These poor children that only wanted someone to understand them. Neither of them deserved what they got, and even though one of them seemed to not be punished, he or she really was.
Summed up, read these freaking book. Click on the title above for the link. Seriously, this is one of those books that's going to stick in your head for quite some time, and you're going to want to come back to it again and again and again.
No comments:
Post a Comment