bookfairy95
I think this book is a wonderfully told story about friendship and finding your own way. The writing style is easy and smooth. I flew through the pages, I could just lay back and relax while reading and I wasn’t interrupted by complicated sentence structure or by endless descriptions. I could not entirely identify with the main character, but this was absolutely nothing bad because Gemma is just lovable. The four main characters in the book were well developed and had depth to them. I found myself hating especially Felicity and Pippa in the beginning, but as the story progressed I came to like and understand them more and more. It is a love-hate relationship between the girls, but shared experience and shared emotions of wanting to belong and wanting to be loved create a strong bond between the girls. I loved to see how four so different girls found each other. A great book! The next section contains some thoughts and ideas I had while reading the book. Beware of spoilers!!!!! When getting to know Gemma I found myself thinking that she is not the typical all-nice-all-friendly character you typically find in YA. She has never been openly rude to Ann, but she also does not necessarily want to be friends with her either, simply because of Ann’s position in society. This is how Gemma thinks in the beginning of the novel at least. Ann is poor, not very pretty and an orphan and Gemma knows she will not be able to leave that status behind her no matter how nice she is and how hard she will try. Gemma also knows that Felicity and Pippa are no good people. She knows that they reduce people to their looks and wealth and power, however, she still wants to belong to them. She wants to belong to the popular girls and get accepted by them. Even though she knows how they treated Ann after “inviting” her, she still accepts to go with them and steal the wine. I mean it was clear it would not go smooth, right!? Her behaviour in that aspect is not at all clear to me but I love that she has flaws and is not entirely perfect and nice and friendly no matter what. And she is sassy! I loved that aspect about her as well. She is strong and knows how to oppose others. All that makes her such a lovable character in my opinion. About the unlikely friendship of the girls: The way Felicity simply let go of her other “friends” and then became friends with Gemma instead felt just horribly wrong. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she will do the exact same thing with Gemma at some point. Somehow I had this really strong fear that this day will come sooner or later. Making me feel this way, even though the book has just started, in my eyes, just shows the author’s ability to connect the reader with the characters and their story. I actually don’t know whether this was the first book of Libba Bray or not, but I really really enjoyed it!!! Even during that friendship that formed between Gemma, Ann, Pippa and Felicity, Gemma sees Felicity’s personality several times. She soon realises that Felicity is all about power and only wants what benefits her, but she STILL wants Felicity to like her. It hurt her to see Felicity and Pippa wear the gloves as a sign of their friendship. This made me wonder whether Gemma is just naïve or whether she is desperately lonely and just wants to fit in, even with that secret she is keeping. When she shares the diary with the others and finally also shares her secret the friendship between the girls feels real for the very first time. It was great to see how a shared experience can bring four so different girls together and make them become friends when under normal circumstances they would have been on way too different levels in society and probably never would have met. Later in the book I came to realise that it is not only shared experience that brought the girls together, but in a way also shared sorrow. They all have secrets, family issues or are just under the pressure of society. Compared to this the other girls at the school have all perfect lives and families. This makes them more alike than I thought in the beginning. However, there is one thing that could destroy everything they have, which is the wish for more and more power that drives them in the end of the book and that comes with a terrible price.
