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Friday 25 January 2013

A Review for Undone by Cat Clarke

Undone
Posted by Donna
Release Date: January 31st, 2013
Finished Date: January 6th, 2013
Publishers: Quercus
Source: For Review
Format: Paperback 
Pages: 352
Buy: Amazon UK /  The Book Depo
Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. 

Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it. 

Then the unspeakable happens.

Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself.

Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible.

And she wants to take them down. 

A searing story of love, revenge and betrayal from a bestselling author.

The Review: 3.5 stars! 

This is my first book by British author Cat Clarke and she has definitely lived up to my expectations as an author. I've heard how good she is at writing stories that deal with hard situations, and well, as you can see, she certainly hasn't disappointed me. Undone is a well written and heart-wrenching story - one that is raw and intense, and I’m glad I’ve finally read something by this talented author. 

Undone follows the life of Jem - a teenage girl who is in love with her gay best friend; Kai. Not to many people that Kai is gay, however when a video of him is posted online, Kai can't deal with the situation so he kills himself, leaving Jem shattered. How is Jem suppose to go on without her best friend? She can't, and now she's determined to kill herself too, but not before she finds out who posted the video online and gets her revenge.

What an emotional rollercoaster this story was. I felt so many different emotions while reading it that it was hard to try and put everything I was feeling into words. It's gripping, compelling and it felt so very real that I was literally a crying like baby during many parts of the story.

I really enjoyed both Jem & Kai as characters. They had such a strong bond - even in death, that was so very touching to read. Kai dies pretty early in the story, but Cat Clarke lets us gets to know him just as much as she did with Jem. He's present in Jem's memories but not only that, Kai leaves Jem twelve letters; one for each month for a whole year, and it's very heart-breaking to read as we discover how Kai feels about everything. He's letter's are upbeat and fun to start with but at times, you can see he starts to crack and you feel the emotions poor out of him through the pages. I felt Jem had a lot to deal with but did Kai's letters help her? In a way yes, but in another way, I believe they only made her that much worse which lead to her revenge. She was blinded by it and ended up hurting more people along the way. I wished she would have opened up a bit more to the people around her but if she had then this story would be completely different.

Overall, Undone is a story that will stick with me for a long time because of how emotional and intense it was and I can't wait to try some more of Cat Clarke's stories. It really is such shame that this something like this happened in real life because it saddens me that people can be so cruel and hopefully Cat's story can bring awareness to people and make them think twice before they bully.

4 comments:

Tipsy Misty said...

Entangled is one of my fave books ever, looking forward to this one :)

Jasprit said...

Oh this is a beautiful review Donna, I've never read anything by Cat Clarke either, but the premise to this has me intrigued! :)

Suzanne @ Paranormal Book Fan said...

Oh how sad. I don't think I'd be able to read this. Great review Donna, I'm glad you enjoyed it and that your first impressions of this author were positive :)

haley hagen said...

This sounds amazing. I am so getting this one soon, normally I wouldn't want to read a book that will probably make me cry like a baby, but oh well! I want to know what happens in this one, great review Donna!! (:

 
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