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Thursday 20 December 2012

Undone by Cat Clarke [Review]

PLEASE NOTE, THAT IN THIS REVIEW THERE WILL BE SQUEEING, FANGIRLING, THE OCCASION HOLY COW MAYBE JUST A FEW EXCLAMATION MARKS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

Written by: Cat Clarke.
Published by: Quercus.
Format: Paperback.
Released: 20th Dec 2012 (Kindle)/31st Jan 2013 (pback).
Rating: 5/5.

Official synopsis: "Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it. Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online ... and he kills himself. Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down. A searing story of love, revenge and betrayal from a bestselling author."

I actually, for the life of me, don't know how to start this review. There's so much I want to say. But as with all of Cat's previous work, you even so much as utter a couple of words and already something it a little spoilt. So tightly woven are her books, Undone, and of course her first two books, Entangled and Torn, that every page has fought a bloody battle and has earned it's place fair and square, it's there because it needs to be. Fair enough, there aren't revelations on every single page, but you can feel it building the whole time, always bubbling away gently until it gets a little too hot in the kitchen and it bubbles over and explosions begin to take place.

It's weird to say, but I think Kai is my favourite character in the book. Yes, he dies at the start, but the more you learn about him, the letters he leaves Jem, he just seems like the person you'd love to be friends with. Always happy, always smiling and trying to make sure that you're okay, that you're happy, often unintentionally neglecting himself.

I have been looking forward to Undone for so freaking long. From the moment I finished Torn, I just knew that I had to read whatever Cat wrote next. She is, quite frankly, a genius. She gets the reader. She gets the voice just right. She sucks you in with such skill and with such power that you're almost in a vice - you just can't tear your eyes away from the page no matter what is going on. So imagine the moment this dropped through my letterbox? Massive excitement. I did a little bit of a dance - I'm not proud of it, I most likely looked like a fool, but who cares? Not me! That's who! And after said dance, I ran upstairs to finish the book I was reading at the time so I could get started. And boy was it worth it.

I will be honest, Undone isn't what I expected. I didn't expect there to be massive twists, but there are! I should of known! You're a sneaky one Cat! Very sneaky! I should of guessed from her previous books that there'd be some kind of twists, but oh no! I expected a pretty straight forward story of revenge. And boy was I wrong! As per the Cat Clarke usual, you are kept guessing and guessing and guessing again. What's going to happen next? How is so and so going to react to this? Massive gasp... I didn't see that coming at all!

And the ending! WHAT?!!?!?!?! NO!!!!!! IT CAN'T END LIKE THIS! NO! NO! NOOOO! Argh! I cried. Not even going to cry. Tears. Felt like such a wreck at the end of this book but it is so worth it!

As per usual the writing is of the highest calibre. It's so beautiful. So fluid. So easy. So natural. You just want to read it all day long! I'll be honest, Undone could of been double the length (it's already 502 pages, yippeee!!!) and I'd of loved every second and still not of wanted it to end. There's just something about Cat's writing that is so intoxicating, so compelling it just makes me want to weep that I will never be that good! She's pure awesome!

I really don't know what else I can say. There's not much I can say... So I'll plead... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! JUST GO! GET THIS BOOK! NOW ON YOUR KINDLE, ON 31ST JANUARY IF YOU PREFER THINGS A BIT MORE PHYSICAL! JUST DO IT! PLEASE!

Okay, that's enough caps... I just cannot express my love for this book, for all of Cat's work! It's just so bloody awesome! So emotional, so raw, so real! That's the thing that I think makes this book all the better. It could of happened. It does happen. It's a sad fact of life that while there are gay men (and of course women) out there that are perfectly comfortable in their skin and don't hide it, there are others that may appear confident, or not, that hate it, hide it, try to shy away from it, and ultimately there are those that go to the extremes. That's what I think gives this book so much power, so much punch. Kai could be real. He is real. 

I'm going to cut this review here, I think, before I ramble on anymore. Just please get it in your life! It's heartbreakingly beautiful and made of awesome!! Thank you so much to Quercus for my review copy and for publishing such awesomeness! And of course thanks to Cat for writing such an awesome story... And for making me cry! Cheers mate! Cheers! Haha!

2 comments:

  1. I wasn't a fan of Entangled - I couldn't finish it - but your awesome review just made me want to read this! I might check it out when I have a spare moment :D

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  2. I really loved both of Cat's other books- don't worry about the fangirling. I'll probably be just the same when I get hold of this! Great review :)

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