Review: Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan
Series: The Lynburn Legacy #1
Published by Ember on September 10th 2013
Pages: 400
Source: Won in Giveaway
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Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

 
I added Unspoken to my TBR years ago but then promptly forgot about it (if I only knew!). It wasn’t until Hannah’s series review, that it came back on my radar, but I still didn’t pick it up straight away. A few weeks ago I was really craving a paranormal read so I had Nick pick one out from a small pile which one he thought (which is usually based on the strangest criteria :P), and he picked Unspoken. Well, little did he know that he threw me headfirst into a serious series obsession!

Kami freaking Glass. Well, I’ll be. She is just AWESOME! I cannot believe how much I loved Kami from the get go. She is incredibly hilarious, so her humor instantly won me over. That aside she was spunky, a go-getter, loyal, passionate, family oriented… the list goes on. Angela, her best friend, is also another absolute favorite of mine. Angela just has the driest, sarcastic nature that I am always drawn to so of course I instantly liked her as well. Jared was the normal broody, bad boy type that I always like but wow… he’s incredibly moody. Ash was hot and very sweet, Rusty was again another hilarious character, Holly was so sweet. Honestly, I could spend hours talking about how much I love these characters, they are a HUGE part of my love for Unspoken.

I really enjoyed Sarah Rees Brennan’s writing style. Although I found the story was a bit all over the place sometimes, her characters and the way she writes their wit and banter won me over immediately. The plot was also fairly unique to me which was refreshing. I have read a ton of books about witches, but never referred to as ‘sorcerers’. That alone was interesting, but the story, although it drew from familiar elements in magical books had quite a few unique elements as well. I’m not going to delve too far into it because I think the way a lot of it is revealed is pertinent to the story.

About halfway through Unspoken, I put it down and put Untold on hold at the library and refused to pick it back up until my hold came through (which luckily was only a day!) because I could just tell this was going to be an ending that I did not want to sit on. And sure enough, as soon as I finished, I immediately picked up Untold.

I was SAD with one aspect of the ending. AH! I don’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t read it yet, but what happened was a huge part that I loved in the story, so I was just eager to read on and see how the story was going to go from there. Also the big reveal moment, when you find out who was doing the killings wasn’t much of a surprise for me. All parties involved I was pretty suspicious of almost from the get go, so it didn’t carry much shock value for me.

Unspoken swept me off my feet. I loved the writing, the characters, the unique story, the family presence and the setting. ALL OF IT. I highly, highly suggest giving this series a try!