This really wasn’t a book for me. The blurb sounded like this was going to be psychological thriller, but in fact it was just a teenage girl throwing a bit of an extreme tantrum over a personal discovery.
Beyond falling massively short of my expectations, I had some other issues with this book.
The main character, Ella, was almost entirely unlikeable and unrelatable. She was short tempered, overreacted easily, callous to her parents and incredibly reckless. After discovering something personal about her past, she decides to just run off in Brazil and live on the streets. It was the biggest overreaction I have ever read about.
There was some ridiculous instalove in here too (I think this author must really like the instalove trope, because her other book – The One Memory of Flora Banks – was also heavy in this area) and I couldn’t even enjoy the romance because we know literally nothing about Christian except for a sad story about his sister, but after only one meeting she is completely and utterly in love with him.
Her ‘adventure’ into Brazil was choppy and rushed. We don’t learn much about Brazilian culture and honestly, I found most of this quite dull and her ridiculous reckless behaviour had me rolling my eyes.
As for Ella’s darker, evil persona – Bella – this seemed to just be a side story thrown in to make the book sound more gripping and intriguing. We learn virtually nothing about Bella and there is no explanation for this other side of her personality or even what happens with it at the end. So that was a massive let down also.
For me, the whole book was unrealistic and not at all what the blurb suggested. Ella was a terrible main character and I disliked her almost from the start, she irritated me hugely throughout the whole book. And the plot was just random and seemed to have absolutely no point to it.
I think, generally, this book just wasn’t suited to me at all. I can see that others have really enjoyed it but sadly I did not.
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