Entangled Review

Entangled by Cat Clarke

3.5 out of 5

I got Entangled off ebay, because it's not available in the US. I guess I can see why, though. As a non-British reader, I didn't know some of the slang that was used, especially in the beginning of the book. It was a little off-putting at first, but I'm pretty good at figuring out words and sayings in the context of the sentence. The slang lessened as the book continued anyway.

The story is told in a stream of consciousness type way by Grace, who flips between her present and the past that led up to it. It starts on the third day of her kidnapping, where she recounts how she met Ethan, her kidnapper, during her drunken suicide attempt. He pushes her to remember something and write until she gets there. He brings her meals and sits with her, but she has no idea what's going on. She starts to write anyway.

Spoilers Ahead

She talks about her best friend Sal- how they met and became best friends. Then Grace goes out of town for the weekend and comes back to a different person. Sal has something going on that she won't talk about until a few weeks later when she tells Grace she thinks she's pregnant. Even though she shared this bit of info, she refuses to tell Grace who the guy was.

Grace feels a little hurt that her best friend won't confide in her, but continues to support her through her decision to have an abortion. But the day before, she and Sal get into a fight- with Sal blaming Grace for the situation by making her feel like she should sleep with people like Grace does. Sal also basically calls her an attention whore for cutting. I actually didn't ever understand Sal's reactions to the cutting. There seemed to be a lot of disgust and less concern.

They don't talk for two months and in that time, Grace meets Nat. At first he's reluctant to go out with her, saying he's thinking about someone else, but decides to go out with her anyway. Everything is good until Nat finds out that Sal is her friend, though Grace is dense enough that she doesn't understand the awkwardness. I knew as soon as Nat said he was thinking about someone else that it was Sal. But Grace is tripping along in her love induced stupidity until Nat's brother Devon tells her that Nat is sneaking around on her. She doesn't want to listen and Devon tricks her into walking in on Sal and Nat.

There were a lot of times that I just wanted to punch Grace in the face for being so stupid. How could she not see that something was up with Sal and Nat? They were so awkward while she was around but were always huddled and whispering when she stepped away. Nat was overly concerned about why Sal and Grace fought and, when Grace told him, he got angry when Grace wouldn't tell him who Sal slept with even though she didn't know. And Sal was always getting angry and defensive over innocent comments when it was obvious that Grace didn't have the full story. I also wanted to punch Sal and Nat when they both tell Grace that she should be honest with them when they are keeping secrets. 

As Grace is writing her story, her kidnapper Ethan is becoming weaker until he disappears. I guess Ethan is supposed to represent the part of her that was holding her back from waking up after her unsuccessful suicide attempt. We find out in the end that she is actually in the hospital in a coma. She can hear everyone that comes in to talk to her, but can't move or speak. The story ends with her mother and Devon promising to be back and her vowing to herself to keep trying to wake up.

I didn't realize this was contemporary fiction at first. The back was pretty vague and when your main character wakes up in a strange white room after a possible kidnapping by a mysterious stranger, it's easy to make that mistake. Plus the cover, as pretty as it is, is more like one that would be on a paranormal book. I have nothing against contemporary books, though. Once I figured out that nothing paranormal was going to happen, I was fine with it.

Overall, I thought Entangled covered the subject matter in an interesting way.  The characters weren't that likable, though. I found Sal and Nat to be awful people and I thought Grace was stupid a good part of the time.