Pages: 272
Expected Publication: January 29th 2013 by HarperTeen
# in Series: Standalone
Source: From HarperCollins via Edelweiss
Amazon | The Book Depository | Chapters Indigo
Summary from Goodreads:
“Bonnie and Clyde meets IF I STAY in this addictively heart-wrenching story of two desperate teenagers on the run from their pasts.
They’re young. They’re in love. They’re on the run.
Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger….
When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can’t run fast enough.
Nobody But Us, told in alternating perspectives from Will and Zoe, is an unflinching novel, in turns heartbreaking and hopeful, about survival, choices, and love…and how having love doesn’t always mean that you get a happy ending. Described as “beautiful, heartbreaking, and exhilarating” by Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF, Nobody But Us will prove irresistible to fans of Nina Lacour, Jenny Han, and Sara Zarr.“
My Thoughts & Review:
Fifteen year old Zoe runs away from her abusive, alcoholic father when her boyfriend Will turns eighteen. Will has stolen money from his group home, gotten a fake id made for Zoe and assaulted Zoe’s father all before they have even left the town. While on the run Zoe & Will get into quite a bit of trouble, meet a few “hitches” along the way and try to figure out how they are going to hide in a world that is after them.
Lets start with the characters. Zoe drove me nuts. She was extremely needy, constantly switching moods or attitudes and did not have a good head on her shoulders. I was not a fan of Zoe. I also absolutely was not a fan of Will… I found him to be really reactive and he made horrible, horrible decisions. Honestly I found it incredibly hard to connect with either of the characters at all. I think the fact the book hit the ground running may have been why; there really wasn’t a large back story, you were just instantly shoved into this run away situation and because the past wasn’t discussed a lot initially I found it really hard to see why it was so horrible. Obviously, hypothetically, it’s an awful situation for a young girl to be in… she is abused by her father, physically & mentally with no one to turn to but it was just extremely hard to connect with this happening with the MC because it wasn’t wrote out in the pages. I’m not even sure if that makes any sense now that I’m writing it but hopefully you see what I mean.
I also found the story itself absolutely unbelievable. For one, I would imagine the police would have been on their tail quite a lot quicker than they were. Two, the mistakes that these two kept making were just astonishing. I know there is a fifteen year old involved so perhaps in this type of situation you are not thinking rationally but… robbing a story for tampons and then your boyfriend wacks the owner in the head when he confronts you? Can’t say that would be my first reaction. Not to mention the fact that both of them should have realized that if you are caught at 18 with a missing 15-year-old that is KIDNAPPING! Personally Will should have just told the group home, or another trusted adult? I am obviously reading way too much into this for my own good but I really came into Nobody But Us expecting an entirely different story.
The ending was also awful, in my opinion. I think I might have given it three stars except the ending was horrible. If anyone has read this… you know what part I mean. And if you haven’t, well it was compared to Bonnie & Clyde so… I just think this was basically the story of what not to do if you are in that situation.
The one thing that I did enjoy was Kristin Halbrook’s writing. Well I’m sure it is attributed to her writing style because as much as I wanted to stop reading this… for some reason I couldn’t.
I hate that I didn’t love this… I was dying to read this debut.
My Rating:
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