Hey guys, it's Olivia here from Olivia's Catastrophe.
And today I'm here to give you a book review
of Underneath it All by Patricia Vanasse.
Now if you've watched my March wrap up, then
you know I read this one in the month of March.
It was my last read in the month of March
and I absolutely loved it.
I pretty much said that if I could rate this
book, I would rate it six stars instead of
five.
And I'm going to tell you why this book was
absolutely amazing.
So, first of all I would like to say thank
you to the author for sending this to me for
review.
So this book follows London who is a teenage
boy, and his dream is to get into this prestige
university.
And when one of his short stories gets published
in the newspaper, he manages to get a scholarship
to go to this very fancy school, which is
almost like a straight-way ticket to the fancy
university that he wants to go to.
However, going to a boarding school, and y'know,
being from the lower class among all these
prestigious upper class people
it's not going to be easy.
However, while he is there he manages to fall
into a friendship group which has it's own
secrets and dark sides.
And he happens to fall for this girl called
Aria.
The only problem is that Aria has a boyfriend
who just happens to be one of the members
of London's new friend group.
Wait, you guys, I know what you're thinking.
Well, this isn't the book for me.
Let me get you started on why this book is
so brilliant even though that premise seems
a bit generic.
This book follows a bookworm.
First of all, London is a guy, and he really
loves books, and he really loves writing.
As someone who loves to read and write myself
that really spoke to my heart.
And Aria as well is someone who also loves
reading and writing.
She writes poetry -- again something really
close to my heart
as I consider myself more a poet than a novelist.
So I really enjoyed that side of things.
But the characters in this book are just so
realistic that they can literally leap off
of the page.
And I think one of the reasons why that is
so is because they all have huge flaws.
They're not flaws that overtake their whole
selves but none of them are perfect.
And all of them are struggling with their
own battle and their own dark side.
Even the -- there's not really a villain in
this book -- there's a lot of moral grey area.
I can't really say that this person was a
good character, and this person was a bad
character.
Because we get to see them all and see that
they all have different things that motivate
them
different reasons why they do the things they
do.
And over time we gradually get into the backstory
of all the main characters.
The friend group has got five of them.
There's London, there's Dillion who is dating
Aria who is also in the group.
There's Lisa in the group and there is also
Nate who is best friends with Dillion.
They're pretty much called the golden clique.
And no one understands why London has been
let into the golden clique so easily.
As for the plot, you can tell there is this
huge romance plot going on.
London is in love with Aria but Aria is one
of his friends,
but I don't really condone cheating in my
books.
So... sometimes the relationship got a bit
confusing, and they don't really cheat
but...HMMM I had thoughts!
Even though I had these thoughts it was still
really easy to see where they were all coming
from.
Because the author does such a good job of
describing their reasoning for everything
they do.
So I couldn't really dislike the characters
for their choices.
Even if I maybe didn't agree with all of them.
And as well as that plot going on, there is
also an underlying mystery.
There are a lot of unanswered questions that
are presented in this book.
Which all have to do with this golden clique:
their friendships
and their dark pasts. And we're not going
to get answers straight away.
In fact one of the biggest questions that
I wanted to know,
you don't get the answer until right at the
end of the book.
But I actually did not manage to guess who
was the one causing all these problems.
I didn't understand who it was.
And even though I had an inkling about who
it might be,
I couldn't understand why they would do it
so there is a mystery in here
that was done really well!
And I kept thinking, like, how is this going,
and how is this happening all the time?
Which made me keep reading and race through
the whole book.
As well as that romance plot, but also we
really dig deep into the characters.
This is a very character driven read. I'm
not sure how much plot driven readers will
enjoy it.
But Aria who is the love interest, she has
had a very difficult time
because her mother committed suicide. She's
coming to terms with that.
And Aria has a lot of problems that she needs
to deal with and confront
and face herself.
One of the best things I felt about this book
was that I could not
forsee how this book was going to have a happy
ending.
You know the romantic situation - I don't
see how that's going to have a happy ending
where he gets the girl and he gets the friends.
And then some perilous things started to happen,
which had really high stakes
for London and the people around him, and
again I thought:
there isn't going to be any possible way the
author can make this all like:
they lived a happily ever after.
And I'm kind of glad that she didn't make
it into a happily ever after kind of ending.
This book has a realistic ending.
And I'll just leave it at that.
But I think it's very good that she chose
that ending rather than
making it something that is unrealistic since
the whole book is so realistic and hard hitting.
I do want to give a couple of trigger warnings
here because
this book deals with a lot of dark topics.
So trigger warnings for themes of suicide,
for drug use and for self-hate.
I also really appreciated this book as a coming
of age novel.
I'm not saying London is naive when he enters
into this boarding school because
he is NOT naive but he is a little bit naive
in the fact that he lets himself
get caught up in everything. And I think halfway
through the book
or at least towards the end he gets a huge
reality bomb drop.
And you can tell that he has grown up so much
in this book,
from the beginning to the end. For the better,
for the worse, I am not entirely sure.
But, I just, y'know... y'know that feeling
when you get those characters that are like
your children
and they've come a long way and you're so
proud of them?
That's exactly how I felt by the end of this
book.
I also want to talk a little bit about the
format of this book.
So this book is a novel as you can tell from
it having chapters
but seeing as Aria is a poet we also get to
see some of her poems
and they are in the form of written pages.
Just a randomly written page in the book.
And at first I was like: okay, this poetry
is just mediocre poetry.
I'm not going to say it's the best poetry
ever. So I thought:
'Um, it's kind of mediocre, I don't really
care about it.'
And I wasn't really paying much attention
to the poems when I read them.
However, as the story progresses and I delved
deeper into the mystery
and all of the plot things that were happening,
I realised how much
these poems were a good way to see into Aria's
mind because
the whole book is actually told from London's
perspective.
And it's like the poems were a little bit
of getting into Aria's mindset.
And I actually really appreciated it them
so I do think the poems are
worthwhile reading. It kind of gave me The
Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson vibes
because that is how the poetry is used in
that book as well.
Although I would say that this book is a better
book than that one.
I have also really been enjoying books which
feature friends groups.
And as you probably know if you've been watching
this channel as I've been
talking about it everywhere lately, The Raven
Cylce has a very good friend dynamic.
And I think although this one is a different
kind of friends dynamic
I really did enjoy seeing that friend's dynamic
and how they
always have each other's backs. They're always
willing to cover for each other without a
doubt.
They'll just do the best that they can do
for this group of like -- they're not misfits
--
but this group of really fractured and broken
people who are all trying to heal
in their own ways.
I don't think there is really much more I
can say about this book.
Other than do read this one. And if you do
read it you'll be supporting an indie author.
Because this is a self-published book.
I think it deserves a lot more love.
I'll be leaving the Goodreads, and the Book
Depository, Amazon, all that jazz
links down below. So make sure you definitely
check this one out.
Thank you guys so much for watching!
Please let me know in the comment section
down below
how you feel about poetry. Is poetry something
you read? Something you don't read?
Just let me know!
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Goodbye!
