Reviews with content warning for Emotional abuse - The Things We Don't See

Sadly, this book did not work for me at all. I had high hopes because I loved the author's previous book, The Truth About Keeping Secrets, and this book seemed to have everything I wanted: a podcast element, an isolated setting, an unsolved mystery on a small island, a complex protagonist with trauma in her own past, the amateur teen sleuth trope, AND a wlw romance!

However, the podcast element did not feature beyond the first 30 pages, and the rest just did not come together in a way that was satisfying to me. This book was extremely slow-paced, not much happened during the course of the investigation, and when something did, it wasn't particularly intriguing. The cast of characters wasn't dynamic enough to keep my interest, they were not especially well-developed or interesting. The setting also lacked development in my opinion.

The flowery writing, which worked for me in The Truth About Keeping Secrets, was very confusing this time. It was beautiful and lyrical a couple of times, but mostly it was just convoluted and did not succeed in explaining the characters' feelings. More often than not I was very confused by what was happening inside characters' minds and Mona's in particular because it felt like the author was trying way too hard to sound lyrical. Mona is supposed to go through some sort of growth in this story but the way it was written was so convoluted that I'm not entirely sure what the point of her growth was supposed to be. Peyton and Mona's interactions were equally incredibly confusing, it could've been a cute hate-to-love type of romance but so little was explained that you were ultimately left to figure out for yourself why they were behaving a particular way.

Convoluted writing and a lack of dynamic characters made this book a huge missed opportunity for me. Hopefully the author's next book will work for me again like her debut novel did.

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grace_lola14's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

though the story and the pacing was a little messy from time-to-time, i found that i barely even cared. the prose was delicious and, in fact, many of the flaws in the organisation of the novel (skipping between rushing through major plot points, half-dipping into characters and then abruptly dropping out, scraping the surface and never really reaching out beyond the confusing shroud of mona’s head) actually just further enhanced my experience and understanding of mona as a character. because of this, her trauma was so tangible that it truly left a print on me for a while after reading.

my only real wish was that peyton wasn’t left hanging so completely at the end, and that there was some sort of resolution or reconciliation of her relationship with mona

still, no one does YA like savannah brown

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ashyyy's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

It started out as a protagonist solving a mystery, but quickly turned into grieving loss and self identity. I found reading Mona's perspective to be comfortable, even though she was not likeable for 80% of the book. I found Peyton and Liam to be surface level characters, kind of wish more had happened with Peyton.
At first, I thought the climax would make me frustrated,

what with it not actually being the reveal of the mystery, but Mona's self realisation instead. However, I think that's kind of the point, that she went looking to solve Roxy's problem, but found more about herself instead. I also like that Roxy wasn't a humble person, that she had become bitter as years passed.

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questingnotcoasting's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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lilythebibliophile's review

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adventurous dark hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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miserablesplendor's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In this era of true crime podcasts and Buzzfeed Unsolved, Mona Perry may only be a seventeen-year-old but already she lives and breathes the life of a detective noir, chain-smoking in shadowy alleyways and fighting temptation in the form of femme fatales.

Determined to solve the thirty-year-old mystery behind the disappearance of up-and-coming pop star Roxy Raines, Mona runs away to the quiet town of Sandown—where Roxy once lived—and tries to break apart the mystery no one is willing to solve. But turns out Roxy’s disappearance has more to the eye than it seems, and it may even be tied to the disappearance of her own sister.

I have been a fan of author Savannah Brown since she rose to fame with her spoken word poem What Guys Look For In Girls and her debut novel The Truth About Keeping Secrets is one of my favourite books. I had been eagerly counting down the days til I could get my hands on The Things We Don’t See and it took me a week of searching before I could even find it in a bookstore.

In true Savannah Brown fashion, her novel is full of lyrical prose describing the disappearance of Roxy Raines and the overly-quiet town of Sandown that seems to be determined to keep the pop star’s disappearance under wraps. Every line is carefully constructed to build the exact atmosphere that Brown is going for, leaving me on the edge of my seat as I devoured the pages in an effort to find out what happened to Roxy and Mona’s own sister.

A true shining star, Mona is so utterly compelling in her drive to solve the mystery that even in all of her seventeen-year-old unlikeablity, and Sherlockian-lack of empathy in favour of the case, she is still so interesting that I can’t help but root for her. Mona is an excellent detective, and her findings and thought processes are so cleverly explained that even I (serial confused detective’s assistant) was able to crack the case beside her.

The clues are all cleverly woven into the narrative, but even so all the twists are beautifully orchestrated, unforeseeable but still plausible.

Despite The Things We Don’t See being classified as a Young Adult novel (due to the age of the protagonist), this is definitely a book that is enjoyable by all ages. Its intellect and themes would not be out of place in an Adult fiction novel and the only thing stopping Brown’s novels from being classed as such is just the ages of the characters.

At this point, halfway through the year, I can definitely say that The Things We Don’t See is one of the best releases of the year and that everyone should be running to the bookstores to pick this up, or at the very least, sprinting to StoryGraphs so as to add it to their TBR list.

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bookswithben's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Not as brilliant as the The Truth about Keeping Secrets but still a pretty strong solid second book. I feel I would appreciate it more on a second read.

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marcella98's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

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