Title: Slide
Author: Jill Hathaway
Genre: Young Adult Supernatural? Mystery?
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: March 27, 2012
Hardcover: 256 pages
Where’d I Get It: For review from the publisher
Synopsis (From Goodreads): Vee Bell is certain of one irrefutable truth—her sister’s friend Sophie didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.
Vee knows this because she was there. Everyone believes Vee is narcoleptic, but she doesn’t actually fall asleep during these episodes: When she passes out, she slides into somebody else’s mind and experiences the world through that person’s eyes. She’s slid into her sister as she cheated on a math test, into a teacher sneaking a drink before class. She learned the worst about a supposed “friend” when she slid into her during a school dance. But nothing could have prepared Vee for what happens one October night when she slides into the mind of someone holding a bloody knife, standing over Sophie’s slashed body.
Vee desperately wishes she could share her secret, but who would believe her? It sounds so crazy that she can’t bring herself to tell her best friend, Rollins, let alone the police. Even if she could confide in Rollins, he has been acting off lately, more distant, especially now that she’s been spending more time with Zane.
Enmeshed in a terrifying web of secrets, lies, and danger and with no one to turn to, Vee must find a way to unmask the killer before he or she strikes again.
My Thoughts: I probably should have written this review the moment I finished the book, because the story is so entirely forgettable that I’m having trouble putting my thoughts to paper. (or, well, screen.)
The pacing of this novel was far, FAR too fast and packed into far too little space. I feel like everything was over just as I started it, and in fact I read this straight through in a matter of hours. Vee is not an overly likable character and it’s hard to sympathize with her situation at all because of that.
Vee’s “sliding” isn’t explained much, and we don’t really get to see the why of it. I also feel like there is a bit of confusion on whether this book should have been a straight up mystery, something paranormal, or, well, just something different entirely. Really, the sliding seemed to be thrown in there specifically so Vee could “see” that her friend’s suicide wasn’t exactly a suicide. Other than that, it was really kind of useless.
I had a few problems with major points in the book:
1) Vee’s sliding, for one. She’s been doing it this long but has never fully explored what it means, how she can make it happen intentionally, whether or not her host body will obey her commands.
2) The inevitable love triangle is just silly. Vee’s absolutely blinded to her best bud’s affections? Not believable. She falls immediately in love with OtherBoy? Sure, that’s believable in a teenager with their hormone driven intense emotional reactions to, well, everything. Or, well, falling “in lust”, not so much love. Then, suddenly, she’s in love with best bud? Overall, the whole situation seemed forced.
3) Too many tough issues introduced that weren’t fully explored, or even really thought about too deeply: teen suicide, adultery, murder, depression…
On top of it all, the mystery portion of the book was entirely too predictable, at least for anyone who’s ever read mystery novels on a regular basis.
Slide promised a lot but failed to deliver. I doubt I’ll be reading the sequel, but I do hope it’s a little longer so that fans of the series can have a bit of story to sink in to.
Rating: 2 of 5