Posts Tagged: We Are The Goldens

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Review: We Are The Goldens by Dana Reinhardt

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I received this book for free from Random House in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review: We Are The Goldens by Dana ReinhardtWe Are The Goldens by Dana Reinhardt
Published by Wendy Lamb Books on May 27th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, YA
Source: Random House
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three-stars

Nell knows a secret about her perfect, beautiful sister Layla. If she tells, it could blow their world apart.

When Nell and Layla were little, Nell used to call them Nellaya. Because to Nell, there was no difference between where she started and her adored big sister ended. They're a unit; divorce made them rely on each other early on, so when one pulls away, what is the other to do? But now, Nell's a freshman in high school and Layla is changing, secretive. And then Nell discovers why. Layla is involved with one of their teachers. And even though Nell tries to support Layla, to understand that she's happy and in love, Nell struggles with her true feelings: it's wrong, and she must do something about it.

As someone who is always looking for unique reads I am quick to jump on novels written in the second person. I didn’t originally know that this is how We Are The Goldens was written but once I found out that little tidbit of info I was quick to scoop it up and get going on it. For those of you that are wary of the novel for this very reason I say “Do not fear!” This is a very successful use of this mode of story telling and even though there wasn’t as much substance to the story as I would have liked, I think it was a very well done novel.

Nell and Layla are sisters who are best friends, thick as thieves. When Nell was a little girl she even thought her name was Nellayla, which is a huge sign to her of just how intertwined their lives are. We get this story almost as if Nell is writing a letter to Layla and telling her all about how she dealt with everything that went on in their lives in her freshman year of high school. Things were supposed to be so perfect once they were back at the same school (Layla being a junior) but nothing went as planned when Nell was let in on what was going on in her big sister’s life. Sure, there are rumours about Mr. B every year with some new female student, but Nell quickly finds out that the ones about him and her sister are very true. I love reading about taboo relationships so this was a quick selling point for me as well but I can’t say that I got enough of that. We aren’t privy to all the dirty details of the relationship because we get the whole story from Nell who, for most of the novel, tries to not accept the truth of what is actually going on with her older sister. I longed to delve more into the inner workings of their relationship and see what it was from Mr. B’s side not only for the gloriously, beautiful, best-relationship-there-ever-was that Layla puts it out there to be.

Not all of the story is about what is going on with Layla and Mr. B, though. We also see what goes on in Nell’s life. She develops a crush on a boy named Sam Fitzpayne and there’s a lot of drama that comes along with that. The novel even touches on the struggles these sister’s go through of children in a broken home. Their parents divorced when they were quite young and we see that they split their time between two homes and deal with having a step mother come into their lives and the fact that their mother is dating. I felt like we just scratched the surface on all of this though, much like the taboo relationship of the story, I never got a real feel for how Nell felt or even what really happened with her and Sam. I think this could be due to how short the novel is. On my Kindle it clocked in at 158 pages and it really felt like I had read a novella, like I had only gotten a snapshot of a story. I have read many a short novel that have worked and packed their fair share of substance into very few pages but I just don’t think the same can be said about this one.

I did really enjoy reading this story, I loved the use of second person narrative and I really wanted to get to know Nell and Layla. I felt like we got the most development in the story when it came to Nell’s best friend, Felix. He was someone that I really enjoyed and I loved seeing what was going on in his home life and how he and Nell helped each other through so much. When it comes down to it though, I just wanted more.

three-stars

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