 | Title: Slide
Sexual Content: Kissing, References to teen pregnancy Rating:
Okay – A few good points, but with significant flaws. Library/swap/borrow if you want. |
Description
Vee Bell is certain of one irrefutable truth—her sister’s friend Sophie didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.
Vee knows this because she was there. Everyone believes Vee is narcoleptic, but she doesn’t actually fall asleep during these episodes: When she passes out, she slides into somebody else’s mind and experiences the world through that person’s eyes. She’s slid into her sister as she cheated on a math test, into a teacher sneaking a drink before class. She learned the worst about a supposed “friend” when she slid into her during a school dance. But nothing could have prepared Vee for what happens one October night when she slides into the mind of someone holding a bloody knife, standing over Sophie’s slashed body.
Vee desperately wishes she could share her secret, but who would believe her? It sounds so crazy that she can’t bring herself to tell her best friend, Rollins, let alone the police. Even if she could confide in Rollins, he has been acting off lately, more distant, especially now that she’s been spending more time with Zane.
Enmeshed in a terrifying web of secrets, lies, and danger and with no one to turn to, Vee must find a way to unmask the killer before he or she strikes again.
Review
SLIDE is a book that despite an intriguing premise and an appealing protagonist, unfortunately slid right out of my mind the moment I finished reading it.
The opening of SLIDE was rather awkward because the idea of Vee randomly ‘sliding’ into the minds of other people isn’t established for several chapters. And when it does finally happen, no explanation is given for how or when it started or really what theories Vee has about it. Eventually, yes, we do learn when it started (and it’s one of the stronger scenes in the book), but the delay really hurt my reading experience. What also hurt was how rushed everything was. The character growth, the romantic developments, the murder mysteries, and suspect motives. It’s unfortunate because the bones of the plot and the premise for the supernatural twist had real potential (see below for a few other similar but stronger titles).
SLIDE should have been twice as long in order to appropriately deal with all the complex and weighty issues it attempted to tackle. Eating disorders, bullying, teen pregnancy, adultery, sexual assault, suicide, and two other BIG issues that I won’t reveal because they would be spoilers. Hathaway writes well enough that it could have been great. Instead I suffered whiplash as all these serious issues were raised and then resolved (for the most part) in just a few paragraphs. The ending is especially grievous in that sense.
There is a sequel planned titled IMPOSTER that is scheduled for a March 2013 release. I can only hope that it’s page length is worthy of the topics it covers.
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