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Nobody But Us
Kristin Halbrook
Reading Age: Young Adult
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Drama
Format: E-ARC
Pages: 272
Published
January 29th 2013
by HarperTeen
They’re young. They’re in love. They’re on the run.
Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger....
When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can’t run fast enough.
Nobody But Us, told in alternating perspectives from Will and Zoe, is an unflinching novel, in turns heartbreaking and hopeful, about survival, choices, and love...and how having love doesn’t always mean that you get a happy ending.
I hate posting reviews like this. I hate it because I am scared I will offend
someone, I hate it because sometimes I feel they make me look uptight and over
sensitive and I hate it because they always seem to be about books that
everybody else seems to love, and make no mistake people will love Nobody But Us,
but I had some serious issues with it.
Firstly I would like to say that this has nothing to do with
Halbrook’s writing which I found to be rich and engaging, she knows how to tell
a story and I will read more of what she writes in the future.
My big problem was the romance and the way I perceived
it. I am not going to lie there were
parts that enraged me. The relationship
between Zoe and Will is uncomfortable and in my opinion not very romantic at
all. I admire that Will wants to save
Zoe but the question is who is going to save her from him? He is a violent guy, never towards her but
his violent reaction to others frightens her quite a lot. He is super possessive and gets angry at her
if other boys look at her, or flirt with her, or pay her any attention. His accusations and threatening nature makes
her feel bad about herself and somehow she is always apologising. Will may not hit Zoe but the warning signs
are all there. I just do not think relationships like this
should be romanticised in any way.
Another, and less serious, issue I had was
unrealistic-ness. Will and Zoe’s
reaction to just about everything just didn’t ring true to me. I understand why they run away but do not
understand a majority of the choices they made from that point. They seem to do everything possible to make
people aware of whom they are and constantly do silly things that could get
them caught, like enrolling Zoe in high school which I am pretty sure would be
impossible given the circumstances.
What was the final nail in the coffin was the over-the-top
drama. It reminded me of Pushing the
Limits (a book I didn’t like) for its use of drama. The story lines are different but the way they
are told is similar. Piling drama on top
of drama is not for me.
Really, Nobody But Us does not deserve the one star rating I
have given it. Kristin Halbrook is a talented
author and this review is not meant personally, I truly admire what she attempted
with this story. But I feel like I have
to give this a one star rating because for me the dynamics of the romance were
unhealthy and the romanticising of this type of relationship is wrong.
1 out of 5 stars
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Thanks for sharing your honest opinion! I think this was a great critique and it's sad that you have to worry about someone flipping out (as we sadly have seen happen in the blogosphere). But you were very level-headed and I appreciate you sharing.
ReplyDeleteI, too, thank you for the honest review. We sure don't need to see abusive relationships romanticized at all!! It puzzles me whenever I see something like this in romance novels. The romance genre is dominated by women (except for Nicholas Sparks), so it's really puzzling that a female writer would romanticize any sort of male abuse, whether physical or verbal.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely skipping this one!! :)