I am back with another book review, today it is Frayed by Kara Terzis. Thanks so much to Raincoast Books for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. As always, all opinions are my own.
First of all, let me just say that this book took me about 3 hours to read. And its almost 300 pages long. Now, part of me thinks that's just because the font is HUGE (ok, maybe just a little bit bigger than the typical font) so it didn't take me as long as a book this length normally would have, and a small part of me thinks that it was just a fast-paced book. There wasn't really much down time, one thing happened, and then bam, another thing happened. I read it quickly and in one sitting, but I don't know if I found that aspect of the book enjoyable. There were times when the suspense wasn't really built up, everything was happening so quickly.
This book is pretty much driven by that suspense, there wasn't a lot of character development. The main character Ava has a lot going on in her life, her sister was just murdered a couple of months ago, and she has recently just found out some things about her boyfriend of two years that aren't really great. And on top of that, her best friend is becoming distant and the notoriously violent all girls gang at her school is trying to get her. Next thing you know, she doesn't have a boyfriend, or a best friend and her whole perception of her sister is now a lie. There is a lot to take in and a lot going on, and at some points, I wasn't sure I believed it all. I get there had to be some conflict, but there were a couple side storylines that I didn't really think were necessary.
When we found out who killed Kesley (sidenote: it's KeSLey not KeLSey, I kept thinking it was Kelsey), anyways, we find out who the killer is and I don't really know who to feel. I mean, it makes sense, but there are not pre-cursory signs. I won't say who it is, or what happens surrounding that person, but I just felt like, in other books I've read dealing with this, you can usually suspect. I had no idea, but I'm not sure that blindside was good. It felt almost like a cop out. "Oh, this person couldn't have possibly killed her, but this happened, so it all makes sense now."
I will say though, I did enjoy this book. It held my interest, and I sincerely wanted to know who the killer was. I had a bunch of different theories, from the adopted mother, to one of the girls in KARMA. This is a solid book, but compared to the more adult thrillers I've been reading, I just didn't love it.
I also do want to briefly mention Wattpad, because this book had a very Wattpad feel. The author won a contest on Wattpad, (Wattpad is essentially a site where people can write and upload books/stories for others to read, either original works, or fan-fiction) where this book was originally released and got it published by Sourcebooks. I'm not trying to bash Wattpad, and I'm definitely not trying to bash the author, I felt like this book has great potential, I'm just not sure it is ready for the world yet. It could definitely get there some day, but I think there are a few too many loose ends and minor details that need to be reworked before anything major happens. I think it's really great she is getting the opportunity to be published, but the book needs some tweaking before that happens.
Overall, I enjoyed this book enough to keep me interested, I'm just not sure I would have picked it up myself.