Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Never Have I Ever by Sara Shepard

Release Date: 08.02.2011
Publisher: HarperCollins
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 309
Overall:

***Possible spoilers from The Lying Game***

My perfect life was a lie.

Now I’d do anything to uncover the truth.

Not long ago, I had everything a girl could wish for: amazing friends, an adorable boyfriend, a loving family. But none of them know that I’m gone—that I’m dead. To solve my murder, my long-lost twin sister, Emma, has taken my place. She sleeps in my room, wears my clothes, and calls my parents Mom and Dad.

And my killer is watching her every move.

I remember little from my life, just flashes and flickers, so all I can do is follow along as Emma tries to solve the mystery of my disappearance. But the deeper she digs, the more suspects she uncovers. It turns out my friends and I played a lot of games—games that ruined people’s lives. Anyone could want revenge . . . anyone could want me—and now Emma—dead.

From Sara Shepard, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars books, comes a riveting series about secrets, lies, and killer consequences.

I read this book a few days ago. Finished in a couple of hours so it's a reasonable size book.

I enjoyed the book, and we had a few less suspects than we orginally had seen in the first book Lying Game.

Don't expect to find out who killed Sutton in this book, if you have read Pretty little Liars then you know we only found out the killer in the last 8th book, the first 7 was a build up to the point of where the 8th book revealed the whole truth. So Sara Shepard is following that style so I can only assume that the first 3 books will be where suspects and the innocents are revealed with more secrets uncovered.

I liked the book but I felt it concentrated too much on "twins" character, I just felt that plot was dragged on too much that it was like the whole book revolved around, did they? or did they not? moment.

Also I felt the charcters were not explored enought, they seem more flat. We only get to see the personality but not to much on character development. I can only see one charcter developement as we found out more about her family and missing brother. I suppose this is because as there is only a 4 part book so maybe we don't get to see more character development than we liked.

Also sometimes I would get confused seeing who was speaking, was it Emma or Sutton or a 3rd Narrator but you get used to the style of writing.

We didn't see more of Emma past or the mystery surrounding her family especially her mother but I liked how Emma character has slighted evolved from a "woe" me character to a person who can stick up for herself more though I wished the book had more snarky responses.

I hope we get to delve more in Sutton past becuase we only see her as this rich spoilt girl who seems to live on the edge, trouble personality and insecurity, I hope we see more to her character than this and we find out some secrets that has been hinted in the first 2 books but not revealed. Also more on Why Emma's mom had left, was there a reason for this and the mystery surrounding the twins births, we only heard from Emma POV, but Emma was young so maybe we didn't find the whole truth.

With an ending fitting for a Sara Shepard book, it will have you tirelessly waiting for number three. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyed Never Have I Ever.

Cover:
Characters:
Plot:
Writing:
Ending:

xoxo,
Shelbie

1 comment:

  1. It sounds like we feel similarly about these books (I've only read the first tho). There's a lot to complain about with the characters, the writing, and the plotting. But somehow it manages to draw me in and I really enjoyed it - in spite of itself.

    ReplyDelete