It’s hard to find the truth beneath the lies you tell yourself.
Then: They were four—Bex, Jenni, Ellory, Ret. (Venus. Earth. Moon. Sun.) Electric, headstrong young women; Ellory’s whole solar system.
Now: Ellory is alone, her once inseparable group of friends torn apart by secrets, deception, and a shocking incident that changed their lives forever.
Then: Lazy summer days. A party. A beautiful boy. Ellory met Matthias and fell into the beginning of a spectacular, bright love.
Now: Ellory returns to Pine Brook to navigate senior year after a two-month suspension and summer away—no boyfriend, no friends. No going back. Tormented by some and sought out by others, troubled by a mysterious note-writer who won’t let Ellory forget, and consumed by guilt over her not entirely innocent role in everything and everyone she’s lost, Ellory finds that even in the present, the past is everywhere.
The path forward isn’t a straight line. And moving on will mean sorting the truth from the lies—the lies Ellory has been telling herself.
MY THOUGHTS
I have mixed feelings for this book. I started out liking it, but by the midpoint I was bored.
It used to be the four of them together, Bex, Jenni, Ellory, and Ret. All of them revolving around Ret. But months later, Ellory finds herself alone, without her group of friends, and with the school hating her. Going back and forth between Then and Now, this is the story of what broke apart these four friends.
The set-up with the switching timelines, between Past and Present, did make a compelling mystery at the start. Sure, it's been done so many times before at this point, but it still makes a reader curious. What happened to Ellory in those months between? I had just gotten done with I Killed Zoe Spanos, so I was looking forward to a twisting mystery. A mystery with unreliable characters. In a way, this book does have that. The characters certainly aren't reliable, which can make an interesting read. From the beginning, I was drawn into the story. We have this sense of darkness in the Now passages and it drives you to know more. But the more I read, the more I realized that there wasn't that much of a mystery.
Okay, that may sound strange as this is a mystery book, but what I mean is this: there was very little actually driving the book forward. There is the overarching mystery of finding out what happened to Ellory and her group of friends, but neither perspective spends time on that question. They barely even hint at it. By the end of the book, yes, we get our answer, but that's only when the two timelines start to catch-up. Until then, we get a whole lot of nothing.
I actually struggled to write a synopsis for this book because not much happens in most of it. In our Then timeline, it's Ellory hanging with her friends and starting a relationship with a boy. In the Now timeline, it's Ellory just going to school and... that's really it. She sometimes talks to her ex-friends, but it's mostly just her being sad. A little less than midway through the book, I noticed that there was nothing happening, and I just really bored. This honestly didn't get better until the very very end, and by that point, I was just a little annoyed that I wasted my time.
As for the ending, well, I have very mixed feelings. I think it did up-the-ante once we finally got to the climax. The plot did start moving along, and it made the book interesting again. It also dealt with the Then vs. Now timelines in a different way. The timelines jumped around more, and we would start to have shorter scenes for each timeline. It really moved the pace and helped fit the puzzle pieces together. Now, as for what I didn't like....[highlight to view spoiler] I didn't like that it made it about a boy. I kind of saw it coming, but I hoped I was wrong. I am sick of narratives where girls fight over boys. I am sick of stories where friends break apart because of a boy. I know that there is more to it than that, that there was tension between Ellory and Ret before their fight, and that this was the straw that broke the camel's back. But, I wish there was a different straw. [end of spoiler]
IN CONCLUSION
This book started out great, but it really faltered the further I read. It has the potential for a mystery, but it lost the mystery midway through, only to create a huge climax. Overall, though I was mostly bored reading this book. I didn't dislike it, but for a mystery, it sure wasn't thrilling. I am unlikely to read anything else by Kit Frick, since both books I've read from her have had disappointing endings.
2.5 Stars
Meaning: I almost liked it, but not quite
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