Summary
Isadora Rivers feels trapped. Her small town high school is
suffocating her.
Another day of wannabe gangsters, dumb jocks, and Barbie clones,
and she'll just lose it. Her keen emotional sensitivity is to blame. She sees
through all of the poser behavior to the pain and insecurity simmering just
below the surface, and it's overwhelming. She feels like she's literally
drowning in other people's emotions.
This same sensitivity, however, makes her a great actress.
Suffocating or not, her high school is one of the top arts schools in the country.
Acting is not only her passion, but it also looks like her way out. If she can
just score the lead role in the school play, she might get herself noticed by a
Hollywood agent. But she's got a strong reckless streak, and it keeps getting her
in trouble and jeopardizing her chances.
Riding her bike at top speed, she swerves in front of a car and
nearly gets hit. The driver, Tristan Blake, turns out to be the mysterious new
boy at school. From the moment their eyes meet, Isadora is irresistibly drawn
to him. But as soon as he enters her life, things go horribly wrong. She begins
having disturbing visions full of unimaginable glamour and unbearable darkness.
He knows things about her he shouldn't. And he's somehow so familiar.
She soon discovers that her whole future is in jeopardy, and her
only hope is to stay away from Tristan. But how can she turn away from the only
boy she has ever loved? As a harrowing event looms closer, one that threatens
to rip apart her psyche, Isadora must reach deep inside herself and find the
strength to change her own destiny. But is she strong enough to do it?
Number of pages: 231
Summary
This summary was sent to me by the author a week or so ago, and
I finally got around to it. It seemed like an interesting plot, not exactly the typical star-crossed lovers.
It was a nice quick read, but I did have some issues with Torn that kind of
turned me off to the idea of the story.
For one thing, the characters to me seemed a little . . . off. It was like looking at a high
school society as how and adult may see it. There were interesting characters,
but they just seemed to interact like as if they were in a bad sitcom. The
language used between the characters was pretty off. I don’t know if it is just
my friends and me, but we don’t talk like the characters talked. It just seemed
kind of fake to me.
As you can see by the bullet above, the book is 231 pages and
not much at all. I am not opposed to small books, I actually enjoy a nice quick
read every once in a while, but this story seemed to use a lot of those pages
up for things that didn’t seem all that important. I feel like there was some
stuff missing and then all of a sudden the big event came up. Other than that stuff, I felt like the
plot was pretty interesting. It is definitely not a plot that you see often,
but the bad sitcom feel of it really turned me off to the story line. From
1-10? I give Torn a 4.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteFunny enough, I just read this book too. I hear it's been getting both good reviews and mixed reviews. Just wanted to say that I agree with you in terms of wishing there was some more action happening earlier, but I totally disagree with you about the 'bad sitcom' feel. These are gifted kids we're talking about, and this is, in fact, how most of them talk. And personally, I loved the dialogue. I thought most of it was totally charming and spot on. Anyway, that's my two cents. Have a great week.
Thanks Anon. Two cents are always welcome here. I understand if my opinion might not be the same as yours, but I appreciate the feedback anyway. Thanks for reading my post, and hope you have a great summer!
DeleteI'm confused. You said the book is 165 pages. It's listed as 231 pages in the Kindle store.
ReplyDeleteOH! Opps! Sorry for the confusion Anon, typo on my part. It is 231 pages, I'll fix that up right away. Thanks for letting me know. I wouldn't want everyone confused. (:
Delete