Bookaholics book club: This is not forgiveness

20 Jan 2012

This is not forgiveness - Review

Available Feb 2nd 2012

http://www.bloomsbury.com/

What's it about?

Everyone says that Caro is bad ...but Jamie can't help himself. He thinks of her night and day and can't believe that she wants to be his girlfriend. Gorgeous, impulsive and unconventional, she is totally different to all the other girls he knows. His sister, Martha, hates her. Jamie doesn't know why, but there's no way he's going to take any notice of her warnings to stay away from Caro. But as Jamie falls deeper and deeper under her spell, he realises there is more to Caro - much more. There are the times when she disappears and doesn't get in touch, the small scars on her wrists, her talk about revolutions and taking action, not to mention the rumours he hears about the other men in her life. And then always in the background there is Rob, Jamie's older brother, back from Afghanistan and traumatised after having his leg smashed to bits there. Jamie wants to help him, but Rob seems to be living in a world of his own and is increasingly difficult to reach. With Caro, the summer should have been perfect ...but that isn't how things work out in real life, and Jamie is going to find out the hard way. This taut psychological drama is the brilliant new novel from acclaimed Celia Rees.

My review:

This book really is exciting as it sounds! Whilst the first few chapters started off confusing and it was probably fifty pages before I really got into it I loved the way it constantly picked up the pace until a nail biting ending. The book mostly follows Jamie but there are chapters that follow Rob and Caro, out of the three I definitely preferred Jamie but I did enjoy the crazy insights into the minds of Rob and Caro, it really gave me an idea of what was going on and everyones motives.
Once I was hooked into the story I was gripped until the conclusion but I have to say, personally, I felt it would've been better without the first chapter which took away some of the surprise from the ending but I still enjoyed it a lot and will definitely be searching out more books by this author in the near future to try.
I found the characters to be really well drawn out and complex, getting to know them was one of the things that made the book interesting, along with the exciting plot and fast paced writing. There well timed mystery reveals and a brilliant ending, though I'd like to have seen a bit of an epilogue to round it up.
I'd definitely recommend this book to fans of the genre and even some who aren't because I don't tend to read psychological dramas but this has most certainly turned my head to them and I'll be checking out more in the future.

My thoughts on the cover:
I'm really not a fan of this cover, it's just to plain and boring for me. The broken glass effect is interesting but personally I like pretty, colourful covers but perhaps the real thing will be textured to add a extra depth and this is just a bad picture lol.

Sorry, no favourite quotes because I read an ARC copy and don't have a final copy to compare them with :)