Review of Torn by Cat Clarke

Four girls. One dead body. A whole lot of guilt.

 Alice King isn’t expecting the holiday of a lifetime when she sets off with her classmates on a trip to the Scottish wilderness, but she’s not exactly prepared for an experience beyond her darkest nightmares…

Alice and her best friend Cass are stuck in a cabin with Polly, the social outcast, and Rae, the moody emo-girl. Then there’s Tara – queen of mean. Powerful, beautiful and cruel, she likes nothing better than putting people down.

Cass decides it’s time to teach Tara a lesson she’ll never forget. And so begins a series of events that will change the lives of these girls forever...

 A compelling story of guilty secrets, troubled friendship and burgeoning love.

( Goodreads )

A book about four girls who actually kill someone? Can I get a 'HELLS YEAH!'? Seriously guys, I'm so tired of reading stories where it's hinted that the girl killed someone and then they like, didn't. So I was pretty happy to learn that they did actually murder their sort-of friend and the story focuses on the consequences of that moment.

The first half of the book was damned interesting. We go to afterwards at the funeral and view Alice's day to day life, coping with what had happened whilst lying to her friends. Which was great but I was starting to wonder what had actually happened. And then Tara's brother Jack asks Alice to meet him and she tell us exactly what happened, finally. Jack however, she gives a heavily edited version as she wants to get in his pants. Tara's words, not mine! 

Did I mention that aside from the romantic sub-plot, Alice also sees Tara's ghost? Yep she does. And this is the start of the lack of good things I can say about this story. Finding out what had happened was gripping but I found the Tara's ghost story completely unnecessary. All it served was to distract me from the contemporary feel of the book and make the book feel completely unbelievable. Personally, if I was the Editor, I would have pulled that as it served absolutely no purpose at all.

And then the ending. As a reader, same as most readers, I like to feel rewarded for my reading with a good ending. If and ending is bad, I have wasted my time. And at (surprisingly) nearly 400 pages long, I was fully expecting a damned good ending where Alice confesses and we find out what happens afterwards, how it affects the other characters lives.
I was given a non-ending. There were things that happened that I was expecting and wanted to happen, but not enough. It was like she realised the book was 360 odd pages long and just threw a quick ending in there. I was so disappointed I wanted to throw the book across the room. So I'm knocking two stars off, for wasted time. *sulks*

3/5

Comments

  1. Hazal5:52 pm BST

    Harsh but definitely fair! I sort of agree with you and the end annoyed me to no end but thankfully for Torn, I've seen worse!

    Check my review of this out? http://thebooktomyheart.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/review-torn-by-cat-clarke.html

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  2. Sheenah Freitas2:11 pm BST

    "So I was pretty happy to learn that they did actually murder their sort-of friend..."

    That is the most hilarious line I've ever read in a review, but I get what you're saying. The summary sort of reminds me of the movie, "Jawbreaker", which was about a prank, I think, gone horribly wrong. I was like 9 or 10 when the movie came out, so I don't remember much of it beyond the plot.

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