ARC REVIEW: All Her Secrets by Kate Avery Ellison

I received an eArc from Netgalley and the publisher. That has in no way affected my thoughts and opinions in this review. This is also a spoiler free review.

All Her Secrets

Written by Kate Avery Ellison

Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction/Thriller

Publisher: Kate Avery Ellison

Release Date: October 18, 2016

Pages: 327

Source: eArc provided by NetGalley

Places to Get this Book: Amazon Barnes and Noble Book Depository

Recommended Age: 14 and up!

Summary:

Nothing is as it seems in this psychological YA thriller set in a not-too-distant future.

A GIRL WITH SECRETS

Eighteen-year-old Victoria, the daughter of inventor and visionary-genius Bill Faraday, was almost murdered by a stranger four years ago. She's been trying to forget the incident ever since.

When Victoria discovers something that might explain why she was brutally attacked, she heads home from college to uncover the truth. Then, she’s kidnapped.

A GUY FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS

Sam’s just a poor kid from Valley City, but he knows who Victoria is as soon as his cousin Craig drags her from the trees. He doesn’t want anything to do with what appears to be a revenge kidnapping, but Craig has a gun and needs someone to take the fall if things go wrong.

A DESPERATE PLAN TO SURVIVE

Craig and his buddies imprison Sam and Victoria in an abandoned mountain cabin to await ransom. Putting aside mistrust for tentative friendship, Victoria and Sam conspire to escape together, and the close quarters ignite a startling attraction between them. Then they discover strange tunnels beneath the cabin. And what they find inside the tunnels proves more bizarre.

With a plan in place to escape, freedom seems within reach. But Sam and Victoria are both keeping secrets about their past.

And secrets can be deadly.

Review:

This was not an easy book to get into. I will be honest with you guys. I was stupid and forgot that Sam was supposed to be a guy and I spent like forty pages thinking so and then I freaked out and had to reread the synopsis and the first forty pages because I thought he was a GIRL. My brain is weird, okay. I thought that I might rate this one four crowns but to me, it didn’t deserve four crowns. There were some things I liked and some things I was not okay with.

COVER

The cover is a little too lovey-dovey for me. This was not a book centered around romance. It was a book centered around escaping from a horrible situation which actually horrified me. And yes, i read this around Halloween but still.

WORLD-BUILDING

There isn’t too much of a world to build. It isn’t set in this time period though. I believe it is either set in an alternate universe or it is set in the future because there are robots that are so realistic. That part just freaked me out.

Then there are the characters.

VICTORIA

She wasn’t a wimpy character by any means, but that doesn’t mean that I liked her all that much as a character. In fact, she was a little annoying. Sure, she was priviledged and I guess that gave her certain thoughts. But to be honest, for bragging about her being smart and all, she should have been a little smarter in her situation. Yes, she wasn’t entirely clueless but she did act a little pathetic. Overall, she didn’t strike much emotion in me at all.

SAM

I actually liked Sam. I pited his situation and knew where he was coming from on some thoughts. He didn’t annoy me by any means and I actually found myself wanting to give him a hug. Near the end, however, he was a little unusful to the plot but I still enjoyed his character.

FRIENDSHIP/FAMILY

Family was a main focus. Though, it wasn’t like the “oh perfect family setting #goals” NO! This was more of, I envy your family, I hate your family or I want to kill you because of who your family is. Yeah, scary huh. There also weren’t many friendships that struck me in this book. Sure, there is Sam and Victoria but that is more of a romantic relationship.

PLOT

The plot was interesting. It was a thriller so it did touch all of those types of aspects. There could have been a little more depth to this one, however. It could have been more elaborate as it had all the makings to be a more complex story and yet, she didn’t expand on the storyline. The “secrets” weren’t too hard to guess and weren’t as complex as I had hoped/expected them to be. There were a few surprises which were nice and I enjoyed.

ROMANCE

This is almost insta love but not quite there yet. The romance wasn’t toxic so that was nice. I was fairly happy with the romance despite what I might have said before. One thing, I didn’t quite like was the fact that Victoria suddenly mentioned she loved him and it hadn’t quite developed at that point. That could have been worked on but otherwise it was good.

WRITING

The writing was good. It wasn’t childish and the characters talked better than I had thought they would. Overall, the writing was what impressed me the most.

FINAL THOUGHTS

If you like thrillers, go for this one. It isn’t perfect but it works. It is a standalone so it has to all be wrapped up pretty fast and it did a good job of that.

Quotes from the Book:

NONE AT THIS TIME

My Rating: 3 out of 5 Crowns