Review of Twisted Fate by Norah Olson

Title/Author: Twisted Fate by Norah Olson
Publisher/Date published: Katherine Tegen, January 20th 2015
How I got this book: received it from the publisher as an egalley
Buy this book at: The Book Depository

Goodreads summary: When Allyson meets Graham Copeland, the new boy next door, she instantly feels like he’s a kindred spirit — shy and awkward like her, someone who has trouble making friends. It’s impossible to resist having a crush on him.

As usual, her sister, Sydney, sees things differently. In Sydney's mind, Graham's odd personality and secretive past scream psychopath, not sweetheart. Her gut is telling her to stay away from him, and to protect a love-struck Allyson from her own naïveté. But despite her instincts, Sydney is surprised to realize that a part of her is drawn to Graham, too.

And the more Sydney gets to know him, the more she realizes just how right — and wrong — she is about everything.

I was kinda expecting to either have my mind blown or to really dislike this book, but to me, it was neither.

Sydney and Allyson both have a distinct voice, they were similar in some ways, but mostly, they were two very different characters and it was interesting to get to know them. Though I think I might have a slight preference for Sydney, cause she seemed to have a little more common sense and while I kinda like that Allyson wanted to believe the best about people, when it's slamming you in the face that they're not good people some kind of alarm should go off. And Allyson's alarm was malfunctioning or she was ignoring it or whatever but I just wanted to shake her and go like OMG JUST SEE WHAT'S IN FRONT OF YOU!! She had a bit of too stupid to live going on and I very much dislike that quality in a character.

I didn't really like Graham, there was something off about him from the start. I did appreciate that we got a lot of different POVs and this way we also got a glimpse into his head and that was interesting. And a bit like watching a train wreck happen. Or maybe a whole lot like that. There were POVs from pretty much everyone who makes an appearance in the novel and seeing things from different sides was enlightening and it made me clue into the big twist pretty early on. But that was ok, because it added an extra something to the rest of the interactions between the characters.

But aside from that it was an interesting concept, it wasn't all that exciting. Or creepy. I had thought it might be creepy. I was also kinda wondering HOW exactly that twist that I was talking about came to be and WHY, but I never really got any answers and now I'm just left like this and it feels unfinished. I mean, I was sticking around for the unraveling of the big twist and then it never came and I feel a bit cheated out of that.
Also, this book suffers from absent-parent syndrome. Seriously, where are Mr and Mrs Tate? It's mentioned in the book that they are away a lot, but they should be home SOMETIME right? How do they fit into all this?

I think I'd just expected a bit more. It wasn't all that bad, but it wasn't all that good either, so basically I just had a 'meh' feeling throughout most of the book and I kept hoping the end would make it awesome, only it didn't. If you want to read a good YA novel with psychological elements, I'd suggest reading We Were Liars or Pretty Girl-13 instead.

My rating: 2,5 stars