Rachel Rambles About Unspoken

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan
From Goodreads:
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?

This book was hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time, and I was surprised by how much I freaking adored it.

The idea of someone growing up with an imaginary friend who then turns out to be a real person is brilliant. What a fantastic and intriguing idea. And it makes sense. At first, I was kind of like "WTF? She has an imaginary friend who talks to her in her head and now he's real? How the heck is this going to work?" But there is a totally believable explanation, and when it is introduced in the story, everything just falls into place and things start to make a lot more sense.

Sure, the idea of the imaginary friend is pretty freaking brilliant, but that's not the best thing about this novel. My favorite thing about Unspoken is the characters. Kami is a sarcastic, quirky, confident girl who is just the kind of protagonist I love to read about. She runs the newspaper at school, and it is her never-ending quest for the best news stories that leads her to some...interesting information about the strange happenings in her town. Her combination of smart and daring allows her to be an excellent detective, and she somehow manages to convince all of her friends to join her as she attempts to solve mysteries.

Angela, Kami's best friend, is absolutely hysterical. Her favorite thing to do is nap, she has zero tolerance for boys, and she offers a ton of comic relief throughout the book. But she's no sidekick. What impressed me most about this book was the way that Sarah Rees Brennan managed to take about five main characters and fully develop each one of them. 

Which brings me to Holly, who is someone that Kami is still getting to know during the book. The Holly from the beginning of the book is a completely different person from the Holly at the end of the book, because Kami's perspective of her changes so much as they become friends. I thought it was really interesting to see a friendship develop throughout the novel, as opposed to a friendship that has already been established long before the book takes place.

Kami, Angela, and Holly's friendship is a huge part of the book, which I thought was refreshing. Even though there were several boys (don't worry, I'll get to them in a minute), the girls' relationship with each other didn't fade into the background. I absolutely loved reading about a group of girls who value their friendship, even when there are a ton of cute boys running around causing trouble.

Ahh, the boys. Jared, Ash, and Rusty. Honestly, I think you should just read the book to form your own opinion of each of them. So I'll just keep it short and sweet: Jared...I can't help but love him. Seriously. All my feels. Ash...He's okay, I guess. I dunno, for me he was just kind of there. I wasn't super emotionally invested in him. But I didn't have any problems with him either. And Rusty...Rusty is my favorite. :) 

I've mentioned that this book is funny. All of the characters are constantly flinging hilarious banter at each other, even in the most tense situations. I seriously laughed out loud on practically every page of this novel. But a lot of those pages also made me gasp and groan and make a bunch of other strange noises that only seem to come out of me when I'm reading. By the time I finished reading this book, I felt like the ground had fallen out from beneath me and my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I got so completely emotionally invested in all these characters, but then Sarah Rees Brennan had to be all evil and totally torture her readers. I mean, that ending?! HOW. WHY. I JUST CAN'T. MY FEEEEEELINGS.

Basically my experience reading this book.

So, in conclusion: this book is hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. If you're looking for a romance, I wouldn't pick this book up. I felt like it didn't focus at all on a romance, which I was actually really happy about. This book was more about the entire cast of characters and their various shenanigans, as opposed to KAMI AND [INSERT WHICHEVER BOY IS YOUR FAVORITE HERE] ARE IN LOVE AND LOVE CONQUERS ALL FOREVER.

Wow, this ramble was a lot longer than usual. THAT IS A SIGN THAT I LOVED THIS BOOK. I could talk about this forever and ever and ever, but I am going to shut up now so that you can go get your hands on a copy of this book. It's definitely the kind of book that makes you feel ALL THE FEELS.

-Rachel