Editon : eBook (204 pages)
Publisher : Knopf Books for Young Readers (2011)
Genre : Young Adult, Mystery, Fiction
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In this high school-set psychological tale, a tormented teen named Evan starts to discover a series of unnerving photographs—some of which feature him. Someone is stalking him… messing with him… threatening him. Worse, ever since his best friend Ariel has been gone, he’s been unable to sleep, spending night after night torturing himself for his role in her absence. And as crazy as it sounds, Evan’s starting to believe it’s Ariel that’s behind all of this, punishing him. But the more Evan starts to unravel the mystery, the more his paranoia and insomnia amplify, and the more he starts to unravel himself.

 My Thoughts

I keep reading because I’m eager to know what will happen in the end and I tried to finish it in one sitting but I wasn’t able to. So I spent another day to find out where the story will take me.

Evan, who suffers  is on his way home from school when he found an envelope on the ground that has a photo inside. He started getting more photographs where some of which he is in and most are of his best friend Ariel. He starts to think that it’s Ariel who’s doing it in order to punish him. He then asked Jack, who is also their friend, for help. As they unravel the mystery behind the photographs, Evan discovers himself more deeper.

What i love about David Levithan’s way of writing is his talent to create an uniquely incredible concepts and interesting characters that can bring out all the the reader’s emotions. I like his writing style, especially in this novel where some lines are crossed out using strikethroughs when Evan is talking to Ariel in his head or when he’s talking to himself. I can somehow relate because I also do like that in some of my blog posts.

Evan is struggling with the loss of his best friend Ariel and he feels that he’s responsible for it. He is more than depressed and hopeless without her. We didn’t get to know more about Ariel and what exactly happened to her except she’s not with them anymore.

This novel is told with words and photos which made the story more intriguing and msyterious. I’ve read in the acknowledgements that Jonathan Farmer provided the photos randomly to David Levithan who continued on writing about it. Neither of the two know what the other was doing. This novel shows how brilliant their collaboration is.

This is one of my favorites from this author though I didn’t give a five-star rating. I felt that maybe the story could be a little longer or maybe a good twist can be added on it. But all in all, this novel is haunting and it gave me goosebumps while reading. Not to mention the photos are somehow creepy. I would still recommend this book.

“You know one me. Just like I know one you. But you can’t know every me. And I can’t know every you.”

My Rating