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A review by sameaton23
Twisted Fate by Norah Olson
2.0
With this being my first read for ARC August, I was ready to dive into this challenge and knock out my crazy long list of ARCs. I thought this would be a perfect choice because I was really excited about this book late last year. And then life happened, and I didn’t get around to it until August. No harm, right? Well this book was strange. Really strange. And I don’t think I was a fan of it.
This is a story about two sisters who have grown apart. And then Graham moves in next door and changes everything. Allyson is the girl who does everything by the book but has to work extra hard at school. Sydney on the other hand likes to get high and is naturally smart and doesn’t have to try very hard at all. Allyson is attracted to Graham, and Sydney has her reservations. And maybe for a good reason.
So lets start off with the multiple points of view. At the beginning of every chapter, theres a list of who is a part of the chapter. Its like setting up the scene in a play or something. I thought this was un-necessary, and would have been fine if the chapter just stated whose point of view it was from. I also thought that the multiple points of view was a little overdone. Theres of course the points of view from Allyson and Sydney. Those were acceptable to me. I even appreciated the ones from Graham. But I thought the book could have done without the additional POVs like Graham’s stepmom or from the police officer. The book was also confusing at times because a scene would be told from Allyson’s POV but then retold in Sydney’s POV. So you never really knew what actually happened. I understand the point of this, because there are always two sides to a story, but that wasn’t made clear in the beginning.
The twist- I’m not going to mention what the twist is because thats just cruel. But I have to say it was really obvious from the beginning. During the whole book, I was just waiting for the book to reveal the twist so that the story could start going somewhere. There was an additional twist at the end, but I wasn’t wowed by it.
I had a big problem with Graham. He was creepy as shit. And Sydney drove me nuts because of it. She kept saying “theres something off about that guy” “hes kind of weird” and I would say, YES THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG. But then she’d turn around and be like “but I couldn’t help but be drawn to him” or something like that. I could no roll my eyes any harder. When someone creeps you out, I do not think that the answer should be “Oh its probably fine, hes cute.” You should run away. Because things weren’t fine. At all. I also had time connecting with the characters. If you can’t connect with the characters, you don’t care about them. Thats why I wasn’t wowed by the twist at the end.
I read a similar book like this earlier in the year by Lauren Oliver called Vanishing Girls which features two sisters growing apart who have to solve a mystery. Even though Vanishing Girls came out after this one, I think Lauren Oliver pulled off the story much better. I didn’t see Vanishing Girls’ twist coming, so it had me floored. And I liked the characters and felt connected to them.
Overall, Twisted Fate just didn’t do it for me. I was bored most of the time and couldn’t connect with the characters. I love good mysteries like this, but it just wasn’t hooking me in.
This is a story about two sisters who have grown apart. And then Graham moves in next door and changes everything. Allyson is the girl who does everything by the book but has to work extra hard at school. Sydney on the other hand likes to get high and is naturally smart and doesn’t have to try very hard at all. Allyson is attracted to Graham, and Sydney has her reservations. And maybe for a good reason.
So lets start off with the multiple points of view. At the beginning of every chapter, theres a list of who is a part of the chapter. Its like setting up the scene in a play or something. I thought this was un-necessary, and would have been fine if the chapter just stated whose point of view it was from. I also thought that the multiple points of view was a little overdone. Theres of course the points of view from Allyson and Sydney. Those were acceptable to me. I even appreciated the ones from Graham. But I thought the book could have done without the additional POVs like Graham’s stepmom or from the police officer. The book was also confusing at times because a scene would be told from Allyson’s POV but then retold in Sydney’s POV. So you never really knew what actually happened. I understand the point of this, because there are always two sides to a story, but that wasn’t made clear in the beginning.
The twist- I’m not going to mention what the twist is because thats just cruel. But I have to say it was really obvious from the beginning. During the whole book, I was just waiting for the book to reveal the twist so that the story could start going somewhere. There was an additional twist at the end, but I wasn’t wowed by it.
I had a big problem with Graham. He was creepy as shit. And Sydney drove me nuts because of it. She kept saying “theres something off about that guy” “hes kind of weird” and I would say, YES THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG. But then she’d turn around and be like “but I couldn’t help but be drawn to him” or something like that. I could no roll my eyes any harder. When someone creeps you out, I do not think that the answer should be “Oh its probably fine, hes cute.” You should run away. Because things weren’t fine. At all. I also had time connecting with the characters. If you can’t connect with the characters, you don’t care about them. Thats why I wasn’t wowed by the twist at the end.
I read a similar book like this earlier in the year by Lauren Oliver called Vanishing Girls which features two sisters growing apart who have to solve a mystery. Even though Vanishing Girls came out after this one, I think Lauren Oliver pulled off the story much better. I didn’t see Vanishing Girls’ twist coming, so it had me floored. And I liked the characters and felt connected to them.
Overall, Twisted Fate just didn’t do it for me. I was bored most of the time and couldn’t connect with the characters. I love good mysteries like this, but it just wasn’t hooking me in.