Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to meet the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her, even if her friends won’t admit it now. As for Jonah, well—Miri knows none of that was Fatima’s fault.
Soleil Johnston wanted to be a writer herself one day. When she and her friends started hanging out with her favorite author, Fatima Ro, she couldn’t believe their luck—especially when Jonah Nicholls started hanging out with them, too. Now, looking back, Soleil can’t believe she let Fatima manipulate her and Jonah like that. She can’t believe that she got used for a book.
Penny Panzarella was more than the materialistic party girl everyone at the Graham School thought she was. She desperately wanted Fatima Ro to see that, and she saw her chance when Fatima asked the girls to be transparent with her. If only she’d known what would happen when Fatima learned Jonah’s secret. If only she’d known that the line between fiction and truth was more complicated than any of them imagined. . . .
Being the doofus that I am, I forgot to take a picture of the book before I sent it to the next blogger on the tour. So the picture for this post is the one from the website of the books. Before I jump into the review, I want to say thank you to Lygia and Alice (https://arcticbooks.wordpress.com) for hosting the blog tour.
I didn’t know if I was going to like this book, but I loved it so much. It’s told in a series of interviews, book excerpts, newspaper articles, diary entries, and emails. The format of the book makes it a quick read. And I really liked the format, I’m a genuinely nosy person, so the format made for a very fun and enjoyable read.
You learn a lot about the characters. The setting was familiar to me, as someone who grew up on Long Island and went to a private school. I was able to relate to some of the pressures the characters dealt with.
This book has come out at the best time possible. There has been a lot of talk about authors who take advantage of their readers, and this book proves it. You watch the strong bond between these three girls get crushed and their trust be ruined. I think it’s an important detail.
We have Miri, who gets so obsessed with Fatima that she couldn’t comprehend that maybe it wasnt her friends fault but actually Fatima’s. Penny who falls in love and just wants to be loved. Soleil who kind of falls through the cracks and wishes her friends saw her for more of a role in their group, but she is fierce and I love her. And Jonah. Jonah has a dark past, and he moves to start over.
I really wanted to like Jonah, I really did. I wanted him to have some redeeming moment where I was able to be like “YES” but that never happened. And I was okay with that, because this book felt a lot more real than a lot of the other ones I have read.
I really wanted there to be some moment where this whole thing was made right, but there wasnt. And thats kind of how life goes, not always do you get that moment where everything is fixed. Some people have to deal with the mess that someone else leaves behind and thats what these girls have to do.
The ending of this book was a lot more realistic than any of the other books I have read. And I think everyone should read this.
Keep your eyes put for when the book is released in May!!
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