Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1) by Sarah Rees Brennan

Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

Oh, the disappointment! I had such high hopes for this book, but it is one I recommend you stay far, far away from unless you’re very forgiving in you reading.

First things first. Whoever thought to market this book as a “gothic novel” has done the book a great disservice. This is in no way, shape, or form gothic. It doesn’t even have whiff of gothic. If you’re expecting, like I was, to read something akin to Jane Eyre, or Rebecca, or any of those great novels, then you’ll be as disappointed as I was. There is no sense of mood, of atmosphere in this novel. We are not overtaken by the dark landscape or the mystery surrounding a particular place. No. All you get with this book are quirky and gimmicky phrases that get boring and annoying after the first page. There is no levity in gothic novels, and this book reads more like a Gossip Girl one than a real, serious story.

The characters all sound the same, again, because of the funny, tongue-in-cheek way the author writes. Kami is the worst of the bunch, with a personality as grating as a zester. The writing is mediocre at best, and it reads much more like the fan-fictions you read on the internet than a real, honest book. And really, the amount of times the word “sorcerer” is used throughout the last half of the novel is enough to want to fling the book (or in my case, the laptop) into the nearest wall.

As you can see, this is one I really, truly, disliked. I doubt I will be reading anything else by this author.