A review by recovering_warriorcats_kid
Solitaire by Alice Oseman

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I was really invested in this book all the way up until the end, which I found to be very out of place. 
Especially considering this story is still canon in the Heartstopper universe finding out
Tori’s eventual boyfriend is also an arsonist that burned down Higgs out of spite
is a hard pill to swallow, particularly because
it was hypocritical of Tori to be so enraged when she found out Lucas was part of Solitaire only to instantly forgive Michael and kiss him WHILE THE SCHOOL WAS STILL ON FIRE. Not to mention none of the other characters seemed to care about holding him accountable even though Tori herself deemed the ‘prank’ to be “violent and pointless” and several people, including her,  almost died.


I attribute most of this books flaws (the ending being the most notable) to Alice Oseman’s young age when writing it and they have admitted themselves to this book not aging particularly well but I still couldn’t give it any lower than a 7/10 due to how much I loved the prose. Though I definitely still prefer Tori as a side character, the rawness of her voice was absolutely the defining feature of this novel and what kept me so engrossed from beginning to flawed end. 

I read and watched Heartstopper before reading this which definitely skewed my opinion of things and I also read it in a day which is certainly a testament to its entertainment value but also probably limited the amount of frustration I might have otherwise experienced because unfortunately the underlying mystery is essentially one big plot hole.
(How do a random group of teenagers have the tech mastery to not only hack the school’s system but also an entire concert? And why is the school building never locked?)


That said, I really enjoyed the romance, the pacing, the portrayal of mental illness and the prose, so I can forgive some of the nonsense (I certainly wrote a lot of nonsense when I was 17). 

I have noticed a lot of people who didn’t like this book seemed to hate it because Tori was a bad person but personally I feel that that was the entire point. It’s about a girl who is equally disturbed and disturbing finding the one person in the world that makes her feel hope. And despite some its other failings it executes THAT story beautifully. 

Overall I would only recommend this to very big Alice Oseman fanatics and Heartstopper/Osemanverse collectors who have a particular interest in Tori and certainly not anyone who is looking for something similar to Heartstopper because it simply is not anything like Nick and Charlie’s story. 
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