Torn - Cat Clarke

"This is the real way a friendship ends. Not with some huge screaming row, but with a gradual withdrawal. You’d think it would be less painful this way." 

Title: Torn
Author: Cat Clarke
Genres: Young adult

Four girls. One dead body. A whole lot of guilt.

Alice King isn’t expecting the holiday of a lifetime when she sets off with her classmates on a trip to the Scottish wilderness, but she’s not exactly prepared for an experience beyond her darkest nightmares… 

Alice and her best friend Cass are stuck in a cabin with Polly, the social outcast, and Rae, the moody emo-girl. Then there’s Tara – queen of mean. Powerful, beautiful and cruel, she likes nothing better than putting people down. 

Cass decides it’s time to teach Tara a lesson she’ll never forget. And so begins a series of events that will change the lives of these girls forever...

A compelling story of guilty secrets, troubled friendship and burgeoning love.

Torn wasted no time and dove straight in. From the beginning, this book has been consistent and never disappointing. Predictable, you'd think from the blurb, but I think that it was how it was mean to be. The story was never about finding out what happened to Tara, although with withheld information and a different approach, this book could've easily been a more suspenseful book. I think Cat Clarke did a good job approaching the story how she did because if she hadn't, it would've ended up like the all too mainstream and very, very predictable crime/mystery wannabee books.

We are revealed what happened to Tara Chambers pretty early on, easily within the fifth chapter. After the truth has been revealed to the readers but not any other character that doesn't already know, we are taken through Alice's journey of guilt, grieving and coping with what has happened. She is torn between doing what is right or from doing what she has to to not get into serious trouble. 

However, at the end of Torn, I couldn't see a story with many twists or turns. I could only see a story with a simple beginning, middle, and end. I could imagine what was going to happen at the end which I don't like, I like stories where I have no clue on what will happen.

This book was an easy read with enough to keep me entertained but not enough to make me want to lose sleep and food over it. Much of the time, I felt that the author was just adding things to pass the time even though I know this isn't true. In spite of my rate, this book was still a good read.

Rate out of 5: ☆☆☆

-C E L I N E