From Goodreads: Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice.
The first time, she’s fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that’ll take years to kick.
The second time, she’s seventeen, and it’s no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina’s murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery.
After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina’s brother won’t speak to her, her parents fear she’ll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina’s murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina and about the secret they shared.
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Recovering addict Sophie witnessed the murder of her best friend, Mina, but no one believes her when she says it wasn’t a drug deal gone bad. Forced into rehab for a second time, dealing with her grief on her own, she vows to find the truth, and find the truth she does…
I felt like the narrative style of this novel really allowed me to get to know both Sophie and Mina on a much deeper level, one I wouldn’t have reached had this been delivered in a straightforward, start to finish style. Instead, Sharpe takes the reader back and forth between the past and present, sometimes jumping back years, and other times mere months, all while showing the reader the ins and outs of the Sophie’s experiences. We watch Sophie recover from a car accident that leaves her in constant pain, see her friendships and love life evolve, and experience her drug addiction alongside her, and know that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, there was no drug deal gone wrong, but rather a plot to murder Mina, stemming from events three years in the past. And I just fell in love with this narrative style. I felt like I was a part of the story, not just an outsider looking in, but a real person on the inside, and that made it a wonderful read that I just couldn’t put down.
Now, I wasn’t ready for the love relationship between Sophie and Mina, but it is actually a perfect fit that shows how much the two cared for, loved, and struggled with their attraction to one another. I also wasn’t ready for the truth of Mina’s murder; neither was Sophie, or anyone for that matter, and I really loved that I was kept guessing from the very beginning. This is a beautiful story that slowly evolves as we uncover the truth about what happened that fateful night. Four stars.
In exchange for an honest review, Disney-Hyperion has been extremely gracious in allowing me to read an ARC of this novel, via Netgalley, prior to its release on April 8, 2014.
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