The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

CW: murder, suicide, self-harm

I've seen this book around Instagram a fair bit lately and then I was scrolling through my Kindle when I spotted I had it (memory of the proverbial goldfish me) and thought now's a good time to read it.

For me while the story was intriguing I'm not sure if I really cared. Even with her diary entries Alicia didn't seem a very solid character. She didn't have any interests or personality. Theo was an arrogant dick and to be honest I'm not sure how much of his story was true and how much was manipulation. He was very controlling for a therapist and the way he went out searching for Alicia's family was pushing the boundaries a bit too much.

The twist was interesting but the ending on the whole felt a bit rushed and the timelines in the end were a bit muddled as to what happened when.

Stef Out x

The Sharp Edge of Silence by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

Lycroft Phelps is an elite boarding school with very traditional values. "Turn a blind eye" and "boys will be boys" both ring true. Above all the boys rowing team rules the roost. They control the school and have created the Slycroft Club, a secret society with less than stellar ideals.

Charlotte is a dancer who is dating one of the rowers but she feels like Seb is holding back, and then she starts receiving mysterious notes about him. Max is a scholarship nerd, insecure about his height but then he's asked to join the rowing team as a cox. He enjoys it but all is soured once he learns the truth about Slycroft. Quinn, known as Q, is depressed and angry following a rape that can't be prosecuted. The three, along with some other friends, come together to start changing the "boys club" culture of Lycroft Phelps.

I really enjoyed the way this all came together and I liked the characters and how they developed and grew. I especially enjoyed Q's progression from alienating everyone to letting people in. I did feel like the ending was a bit rushed and it didn't seem like the situation of who was sending Charlotte the notes was properly resolved. Overall a great book that people should definitely read.

Stef Out x

The Search for Synergy by Brett Salter

Ebook provided by the author for review. Thank you.

Rome thinks he's a normal 14 year old boy but out of nowhere he starts to feel odd and his eyes keep tingling and then they produce fire?! Rome wants to ignore this weirdness but apparently someone has seen him. His classmate Julian.

Julian drags Rome to see Mr Jones, a modern day Merlin who reveals that Dragons used to exist and they could heart bond with knights but there was a fallout and there's also something called the Void which holds really bad creatures. Julian is from a long line of knights and Rome... Well he's a dragon. It appears that after this fallout they took on human forms and went into hiding.

I loved the ideas behind this novel but the execution was a little lacking in my opinion. The speech was very odd, quite formal and a little stilted, I never hear teenagers using "I am" instead of "I'm". Also there was no explanation as to why Julian and his father spoke in Olde English. The pacing was a little off as well, there were several large infodumps but no proper worldbuilding, we also don't really know a lot about the main characters themselves, likes, dislikes, family etc. This was a nice quick, easy read though and will appeal to a lot of people.

Stef Out x

No Big Deal by Bethany Rutter

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Emily is 17 years old and in her final year of school. University is looming and she feels stuck compared to her friends, especially in terms of relationships. As a self-described fat girl Emily is confident and fashionable and largely unbothered by her weight but with her mother constantly on a diet and picking at her about her weight, and a best friend returning from holiday having lost weight only to immediately get a boyfriend, she starts to lose faith in herself. But then she meets Joe. They connect over music and things seem to be going well but is everything as it seems?

This was a lovely, fast, easy read and I loved Emily! It is so rare to see fat characters in books and even rarer for them to not be obsessed with losing weight. For Emily that was her mum and it was sad to see how she let her obsession damage their relationship, though thankfully not irreparably.

I loved how Emily grew over the story and assured herself that she was worthy. The only thing is that Emily's friends could have been fleshed out a little more.

Stef Out x

This Can Never Not Be Real by Sera Milano

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

3/5 stars

I think that this is a book that will require a physical reread at some point. The formatting of who was saying what appeared to be a little mixed up in my eBook version, though I know you can't expect perfection in ARCs. I also don't know if I absorbed it as effectively as I could have.

It's a very unusual book. It's an as it happens narration of the experience of 5 teenagers (only 4 narrate the vast majority) as they try to survive a terrorist mass shooting event. They all attend the same school but none really interact normally yet are thrown together by fate.

I think claustrophobic is a good way to describe this book. Not just because of the hiding in small spaces but because 98% of the book was just this one event. I think I would have liked to have read more from the outside. Not from the terrorists themselves, I completely understand the author's decision on that front, no the police officers and the families on the outside, how did they find out, how did they feel? All we got were a couple of brief police reports that could have been expanded on.

I did like the writing style and would definitely read more by the author, I'd particularly love a sequel to see how the characters are sometime down the line.

Stef Out x

Breaking Down Her Walls by Erin Zak

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Julia Finch is running away as usual. But after taking a detour due to a blocked road her car ends up breaking down in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Despite Julia's somewhat hostile manner a chance conversation leads to a man named Ed offering to pay to get her car fixed in exchange for a job and a room on the ranch he helps manage. Julia is not an animal person and loathes the idea of being in debt to someone but no car means no getaway so she reluctantly says yes.

Ranch owner Elena is not happy about some city slicker working on her ranch but then she sees that Julia has an instinctive touch with the horses and allows her to stay. Elena is a very guarded person, her wife died in a car accident leaving her a single mum to now-teenage Cole, and then when she opened her heart to previous ranch hand Penn, she suddenly abandoned them.

The brilliant thing about this book is the title about "breaking down her walls" applies to both of them, Elena's been hurt before and Julia's chequered past in foster care makes her unwilling to open up and both have trust issues. This was beautiful and I loved the slow-burn development of their relationship. I did want more of the after and I wanted to know more about the side characters, they weren't as well developed.

Stef Out x