#WednesdayYA Unspoken: a Review

Misty, from the Bookrat and Liz at Consumed by Books are doing a bookclub on their blogs and on twitter and that. This month the book is Unspoken, and I thought it'd be fun, so I read it. And here follows a review, and that's nice. So off we go.

Title: Unspoken

Author: Sarah Rees Brennan

Series: The Lynburn Legacy #1

Language: English

Pages: 375

Format: Kindle

The Story

This is the story of Kami Glass who lives in Sorry-in-the-Vale, a little English town. She is sort of a weird kid because she never really grew out of having imaginary friends. In fact she can still talk to her imaginary friend, Jared, and he talks back. She has a reputation for just staring into nothing while she talks to him. Kami is used to be weird and different, and then the creepy Lynburn family returns to Sorry-in-the-Vale. The family used to pretty much run the town, and everyone in Sorry-in-the-Vale is either scared of them, or severely dislikes them. One of them though, seems very familiar with Kami. Except Jared wasn’t supposed to be real, but he is. Her imaginary friend isn’t so imaginary after all.

Characters

Kami – protagonist. She runs the school newspaper and has aspirations of becoming an investigative journalist. She pressgangs her friends to join her and research the city and their neighbors. She has a mental link with Jared, who she thought was imaginary until they meet suddenly. She’s driven, tough and strong. She’s also a bit overambitious and foolhardy, but she does love her friends and tries to help them as much as she can.

Jared – is Kami’s not-so-imaginary imaginary friend and a part of the Lynburn family. He is the son of Rosalind Lynburn, nephew of Lillian and Rob Lynburn and cousin of Ash Lynburn. He is sullen and grumpy, and has always been seen as slightly odd as he keeps talking to himself or staring off to the distance quietly, a.k.a. talking to Kami. He has been mistreated his whole life, by his mother and father and he is a sort of classic badboy, leather jacket, motorcycle, all those awesome things. He cares deeply about Kami and always comes to her rescue, even though he’s not sure how to deal with her. I like him, sometimes.

Angela – is Kami’s best friend. She moved to Sorry-in-the-Vale when she was about 12 and Kami was alone, because no one wanted to hang with the weird kid. Angela didn’t really care about that so they became best friends because they were both outsiders. Angela’s favorite thing to do is napping and only joins the newspaper Kami sets up because the office has a sofa she can sleep on. She’s protective and tough, but she’s such a caricature that it’s hard to take her seriously.

What I thought

The concept is really interesting, two people have been able to communicate telepathically since they were born, creepy aristocrat family comes back to terrorize the valley, all fun. It wasn’t spectacular though.

Things I liked:

Sorry-in-the-Vale is a bloody awesome name for a town.
It’s funny, Kami and her friends have great humor and the whole book is full of humour
There are some sensational allusions and quotes. There is a reference to Ash, Jared’s cousin, dressing in an old-time-y shirt, possibly wet, and posing in front of the manor. Anyone who references wet Colin Firth is a friend of mine. There is a great quote by Jared when Kami breaks his window: “Hark, what stone through yonder window breaks.” Good stuff.
Kami and Jared’s mind reading is interesting and funny, they have a lot of inside jokes and they are silly and loving and cute when they communicate telepathically.
Their reaction to finding out that their imaginary friends are real is very believable and I liked that.
I like Holly, she’s pretty much the only believable character, she’s fun and sweet.

Things I didn’t like

Pretty much all the main characters; Kami, Jared and Angela, are just sort of caricatures of real people. They are so overdone and so extreme that I have trouble taking them seriously.
Kami is sort of judgmental and she slut shames Holly, although she does also grow, she is called out on what she did and she tries to rectify it.
The story is choppy and the timing is weird. I think because Jared and Kami know everything about each other the reader is sort of expected to know everything too, but I don’t. I need some explanation and smooth segues and I need there to be cohesion and consistency.
I feel like the time is a bit weird. Sometimes things happen really quickly, sometimes it’s just really dragged out. Example: Angela is in a quarry, Jared is running through the forest. Kami arrives at quarry, changes places with Angela and Angela runs to meet Jared. Presumably they meet halfway, because Jared is already on his way, but it takes a long-ass time and it feels like it was just dragged out unnecessarily and it bugged me.
Jared’s behavior is weird and confusing. He is hostile and grumpy, and seems to want Kami to stay away, he doesn’t want to touch her (never explained by the way), but he also refuses to consider breaking their link, or to consider what she wants.

Final thoughts

It’s funny, and it’s quirky and sometimes the dialogue just shines. The conversations where Kami and Jared are joking around are amazing. I just got annoyed with being confused by the timing and weirdness. I tried liking it, it just bugged me.