Review: Entangled by Cat Clarke

Entangled

Author: Cat Clarke

Publisher: Quercus

Series: N/A

Pages: 374

Genre: Fiction

Release Date: January 6, 2011

How Received: Star Book Tours

Summary: The same questions whirl round and round in my head:
What does he want from me?
How could I have let this happen?
AM I GOING TO DIE?

17-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with a table, pens and paper – and no clue how she got there.

As Grace pours her tangled life onto the page, she is forced to remember everything she’s tried to forget. There’s falling hopelessly in love with the gorgeous Nat, and the unraveling of her relationship with her best friend Sal. But there’s something missing. As hard as she’s trying to remember, is there something she just can’t see?

Grace must face the most important question of all. Why is she here?

My Thoughts:

Entangled is one of those books that truly make you think, drawing you out of your shell to become engaged and interpret things in your own way. It’s intense, harrowing, and very, very dark. During the entire book, there were a lot of things missing and we’re forced to stumble along with Grace as she figures out how she got where she was, and why.

Honestly, the connection I made with Grace transcends me being a mere reader and Grace being a fictional depiction of a teenager. I felt like the Grace I was reading about was an exact replica of me, minus all the wild sex she was having with “randoms”. I know I say that a lot, but I’m serious with this one: Grace and I both lost our dads (hers is more extreme, admittedly), we both used to cut, we had almost identical thoughts – the list goes on. I became more engrossed into the story because I could empathize with Grace. She is such a complex character that I’m sure I could spend my entire review just talking about her.

Grace had so many dimensions to her, yet she never once went out of character. While she got great grades and puts on a happy front for everyone, she went into this increasingly self-destructive spiral that made me feel helpless once it began. She is so realistically believable that it almost hurt. Grace is one of those teenagers: the ones that look perfectly normal, possibly happy, even, and no one could know that there is so much more going on with her. Hardly anyone, without reading her story, will ever look at this girl in public and want to get to know the lonely soul that I know resides within her. It’s those teenagers that get overlooked the most, the ones that think their lives are worth nothing, and the ones who feel compelled to end it all. However, despite the grimness of Grace’s character, she’s also very witty and it made great comic relief for all of the other depressing times.

The only problem I had with Grace was how oblivious she was. Perhaps it was just me, being raised as a skeptic and seeing the worst in people, but I had guessed what would happen from the very moment that there was the smallest sign. I counted other moments that would clue her—and us—in towards the end (***I’m sure all the people reading our tour copy will get sick of reading all my “uh-oh!’s” I wrote down), but Grace never saw what was in front of her. Sure, it’s realistic because it’s difficult to see bad things in people you know, love, and trust, but Grace was a little too oblivious.

The story itself was... freaking depressing, actually. The title of the book is so appropriate, because I could feel Grace’s life tangling up. I kept getting these overwhelmed feelings – the ones where everything has basically gone to shit and you can’t possibly see any way out of it without cutting the problems completely (no pun intended). I knew, somewhere at the ¼ point of the book, that the book was going to be depressing as hell. I knew that I’d probably cry and get swept up into an emotional whirlwind. And I did. When everything culminated together and things were revealed, I cried. I had seen it coming, but I still wished, dreaded, hoped that it wouldn’t be what I had thought. It was.

But the [actual] ending was the opposite: it was hopeful. I was seriously cheering Grace (and Devon, I might add!) on once Ethan ceased to exist. That meant there was a sliver of hope that Grace would be okay and that she would recover from all of the crap that piled onto her plate. And although I wish we had more to the ending (it was one of those, “I’ll let the readers imagination take a whack at it” type of endings), it was peaceful. It made me happy. It made me cry (I’ve been in the exact situation Grace was in, once upon a time), but there was hope.

Cover Musings: So, so, sooo gorgeous. Tons of cover lust. This cover is what made me sign up for the tour. I’m SO glad I did, so I have a lot to thank this cover for!

Memorable Quotes:

I’m not sure how I feel about the yes-you-really-were-minutes-away-from-topping-yourself thing now. But I’m not ready to examine feelings too closely. Not yet. It’s like I have a bandage wrapped round me. I sort of know why it’s there, but if I unravel it and actually see the festering wound underneath, all yellow and oozy, I may just lose my mind. (pg. 10)

It was a pretty normal night. No more depressed than any other day. That’s the thing: I was never happy, not really. Kind of just existed from day to day, on a weird plateau of feeling nothingness. That’s not to say I didn’t feel happy at times – of course I did. But they were fleeting moments, gone before I could even begin to appreciate them. (pg. 31-32)

To me, the scars are obvious. They stand out like they’re screaming, ‘Look at her! Look at what this freak does to herself!’

It’s more like a whisper though, to anyone who’s listening. (pg. 33)

‘I’m not sure. It’s hard. It hurts... to think about things.’

Ethan stared at me for a few seconds. ‘Maybe hurt isn’t always a bad thing.’ (pg. 84)

It felt like what Sal had said was now tattooed on my brain... some freak who cuts herself in a pathetic attempt to get sympathy from people. Each of those words cut deeper than a blade ever could. (pg. 103)

Why am I the way I am? What a weird question. Why is anyone the way they are? Nature or nurture? A bit of both? Maybe for some people it’s neither. Maybe they were supposed to turn out a certain way, but then something terrible happened. And maybe nothing was ever the same again. Maybe. (pg. 28)

It’s when I’m alone that the doubt sets in. It’s been that way for years. As long as there are people around, I can pretend that everything’s OK. But I need that audience to pretend for, otherwise it doesn’t work. Alone, I’m not that easy to fool.

It’s not that I mind being alone, not really. I can distract myself with silly fantasies and daydreams for hours, but in the end it always comes back to me. That’s what I’m left with: just me. And that’s what scares me more than anything. Me. The thoughts I try to purge by cutting. The memories that seem to get louder and brighter the harder I try to forget. The whys and what ifs. (pg. 214-215)

Questions. Lots of questions, all fighting for my attention. I hid from them under the duvet, but they seeped in somehow. Drip-drip-dripping poison into my head.

Drip. How could they do this to me? That’s what people do. Hurt. (pg. 352)

And I try and I try and...

Nothing.

But I’ll try again. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

I won’t give up.

I won’t ever give up. (pg. 372)

Overall Thoughts/Final Comments: There are those books that you absolutely love and recommend to your friends. Then there are those books that you absolutely love and recommend to your friends because they changed your life or affected you in some profound way. The ones that leave their imprint on your heart and stay on your mind weeks, months, years after you’ve read them. Entangled was one of those books, for me. It was definitely NOT a lighthearted read – it was depressing and made me cry, but I was so engrossed into the story that I stayed up until 3-freaking-AM reading it. And the book goes beyond that, because it delivers a great message: despite all of the entanglements and troubles you have in life, there is always hope that it will get better.

I kind of wish I could keep the copy from the tour – reading Entangled with all of the prior tour participants’ comments was fun and truly felt interactive.

Rating: 5/5

**I received this ARC from Star Book Tours. Thank you Katelyn!
***Quercus Publishing donated this ARC to Star Book Tours in what they're calling Artwork My ARC Tour. It's where the participants in the tour can write things down on the ARC copy, or highlight their favorite passages, doodle and draw images, put post it notes, and whatever else on the ARC copy. This is what I'm talking about when I mention things like reading other participants' comments, or writing "uh-oh's" at different places, etc.