Author: Katie Zhao
Genre: YA Mystery / Thriller
Release Date: 08.17.21
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Source: Purchased
My Rating: 1/5 stars
SYNOPSIS: “Nancy Luo is shocked when her former best friend, Jamie Ruan, top ranked junior at Sinclair Prep, goes missing, and then is found dead. Nancy is even more shocked when word starts to spread that she and her friends–Krystal, Akil, and Alexander–are the prime suspects, thanks to “The Proctor,” someone anonymously incriminating them via the school’s social media app.
They all used to be Jamie’s closest friends, and she knew each of their deepest, darkest secrets. Now, somehow The Proctor knows them, too. The four must uncover the true killer before The Proctor exposes more than they can bear and costs them more than they can afford, like Nancy’s full scholarship. Soon, Nancy suspects that her friends may be keeping secrets from her, too.”
There are no words to describe the pain a reader feels when a highly anticipated book is disappointing.
Earlier in 2021 I decided to preorder How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao, as I was so excited about this academic murder mystery surrounding a group of friends who all were hiding secrets. However, very quickly into my reading journey I discovered this book had more upsetting qualities than I can begin to count.
The first red flag I encountered was early into the story when the protagonist and side character ensemble were interrogated by their school principal rather than police or detectives in regards to MURDER. Throughout the book the protagonist continued to interact with her principal in regards to questioning and evidence. While I will admit that my knowledge of how investigations work is limited, it felt inappropriate and incorrect for a school principal to be asking students for alibis, evidence, and other investigative questions instead of a detective or officer.
The second issue was the characters. While this book details the story of four individuals (Nancy, Akil, Krystal, and Alexander) it was written in first person pov, through the eyes of Nancy. Nancy’s sole POV caused the story to feel shallow and negatively impacted all of the characters. In particular, the side characters lacked depth and felt as though they only existed to serve Nancy. Often, their emotions felt minimized, or non-existent. As per the synopsis mentions, an anonymous user is pointing their finger towards these four as potential subjects. While this is would clearly be a highly emotional situation to all those involved, it often felt like the side characters were unbothered and handled this without much emotional impact.
Additionally, due to the lack of depth in the side characters, the romantic attempts were misses for me. The romantic scenes lacked depth, banter, or angst. Romance is not the sole focus of this story by any means, but it added to my disappointment of the story to see two empty characters mushed together blandly.
As for the plot, I am SAD. I was expecting a fun murder mystery thriller with investigations for the identity of the protector/Jamie’s murderer. However, this story is NOT a mystery in the way I expected. It has a mystery, but lacks all the elements of an investigate. I totally expected the characters to group up to hunt for the Protector, and it doesn’t really happen at ALL. There are a few basic attempts made, but I was never able to be invested in the mystery since it hardly felt like there was one.
Obviously no spoilers, but even the climax was disappointing for me. At that point in the book I wasn’t invested in the characters, but still wanted to uncover the mystery. But… it didn’t make sense. It was very illogical and felt like a stretch and the explanation given totally lacked depth or much shock value. It was more confusing than shocking and more of an unrealistic explanation than something that felt real.
Lastly, the book cut off so abruptly and weirdly. From checking out Goodreads, it does appear this book will be getting a sequel. HOWEVER, it still felt so off and sudden to have the book cut where it did.
So…I am disappointed and wallowing in my sadness. This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021 and I wanted to love it so much. In my reading experience with How We Fall Apart the characters lacked depth, the plot lacked mystery, and overall the book fell short.
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