Saturday, April 17, 2010

All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab

Title:  All Unquiet Things
Author: Anna Jarzab
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher:  Delacorte Books


Stand alone or series:  Stand Alone


Synopsis  (from Good Reads)
Carly: She was sweet. Smart. Self-destructive. She knew the secrets of Brighton Day School’s most privileged students. Secrets that got her killed.

Neily: Dumped by Carly for a notorious bad boy, Neily didn’t answer the phone call she made before she died. If he had, maybe he could have helped her. Now he can’t get the image of her lifeless body out of his mind.

Audrey: She’s the reason Carly got tangled up with Brighton’s fast crowd in the first place, and now she regrets it—especially since she’s convinced the police have put the wrong person in jail. Audrey thinks the murderer is someone at Brighton, and she wants Neily to help her find out who it is.

As reluctant allies Neily and Audrey dig into their shared past with Carly, her involvement with Brighton’s dark goings-on comes to light. But figuring out how Carly and her killer fit into the twisted drama will force Audrey and Neily to face hard truths about themselves and the girl they couldn’t save.


My Thoughts 
This was quite an unusual read for me.  Firstly a murder mystery in a young adult book, as well as two unlikely teenagers getting together to solve a murder that has supposedly already been solved.

The book starts out in Neily's POV.  Almost a year after the murder of his ex-girlfriend, he still doesn't feel any closure.  He lives with his Mother, his father visits only when he feels the need for his presence to be known and Neily is bitter about it.  While Neily is super smart, and a bit of a loner he was very down to earth if maybe a little hung up on a few things.

Audrey.  When it came to her point of view, you can understand some of the reasoning for the way she is.  She's stuck up and untrusting, used to be one of the cool crowd,  and Carly's bestfriend/cousin.  I don't know why, but I actually enjoyed reading from her point of view as well as Neily and that was a big surprise for me since I usually can't stand those types of girls generally.

Neily and Audrey are complete opposites in personality and social status but I think both POV's are definitely needed to show the whole story.  Which brings me to Carly.  I won't say too much on her apart from the fact that I sometimes liked Carly and I'll leave it at that. 

I think one of the many things I enjoyed about this book was the fact that it kept me guessing almost all the way to the end, which is a nice change!  I was sucked in right from the start and thrown back into highschool along with them.  Not the genius part lol, but the atmosphere and the groups divided up into their little groups with labels.

All Unquiet Things is definitely worth the read.  This has been written beautifully, with well developed characters and realistic scenes, some touching upon drugs, rejection, death, love and acceptance.  This exceeded my expectations.

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad you liked it too! I really enjoyed it and it is one of my favorites of 2010 but it has received a lot of mixed reviews.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This sounds very unique. But unique in a good way, I'm defaintly adding it to my wishlist. Great review.

    ReplyDelete

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