Jill HathawaySlide

***ARC received by HarperCollins for review***Jill Hathaway joins the list of great YA debut novels of 2012 with her thriller/mystery book, Slide.In Slide, we meet Vee Bell, who is not your typical YA character. Vee is an ex-cheerleader who doesn't belong to any cliques, loves vintage shirts, loves listening to music, has an awesome guy best friend-Rollins, and she has pink hair! She also has what everyone believes is narcolepsy. But, when Vee has her "episodes", she doesn't just fall asleep. Instead she "slides" into the mind of another person. Usually this happens when she touches something the other person has left a strong mark on. Because of this, Vee hates touching other people's things.Vee inherited her "narcolepsy" from her mother when she passed away from cancer a couple of years ago. (Although it is not explained if her mother could "slide" too) She once told her father about her sliding abilities which only earned her a visit to the shrink and a prescription. Since then, she has kept her sliding abilities a secret from everyone, including her best friend Rollins. (We'll get back to him later!) The fact that Rollins knows that Vee is keeping something from him is hurting their friendship. Not making things any better is the fact that Rollins has a few secrets of his own. Enter Zane, the hot new guy at school who Vee is immediately attracted to.The suicide of her sister's best friend, Sophie shocks their school. But Vee knows that Sophie didn't kill herself because she slid into the mind of the killer. When another one of her sisters friends "kills herself"', Sophie knows she must find out who the killer is and stop them because it seems like the next target is her sister, Mattie.Back to Rollins, oh how I loved him! Although he didn't come out as much as I would have liked, he definitely made an impression. He's Vee's best friend, but he isn't your typical male character. Rollins is a true bad boy: he smokes, he has tattoos, gets into trouble on a regular basis and runs an angsty magazine. But he is sweet to Vee; he always has her back and has her best interest at heart. I hope we get to read A LOT more about him in Impostor! Zane was more of your typical male character, sweet but almost too good to be true. I guess he didn't make an impression on me. Or maybe it was hard to compete against Rollins.Slide was an awesome, creeptastic thriller that had more than enough action and mystery to keep you glued to every word. The twist and turns kept me wondering what was going to happen next and left me guessing who the killer was, although I never got it right. I'm thrilled that they will be another book in this series and I hope HarperCollins makes the right choice and gives us more books. I can't wait to read more about Vee and Rollins and her sliding episodes. If you haven't read the synopsis for Impostor, definitely check it out and add it to your TBR list. Sounds even more dark, mysterious and definitely more creepy. Not to mention more Rollins! You can read the synopsis here:"What if a killer took control of you?Vee Bell's gift (or curse) of "sliding"--slipping into the mind of another person and experiencing life, briefly, through his or her eyes--has been somewhat under control since she unwillingly witnessed the horrific deaths of her classmates six months ago.But just as things are getting back to normal, Vee has a very bizarre experience: she loses consciousness and finds herself in a deserted area, at the edge of a cliff, with the broken body of the boy who took advantage of her on the rocks below.As Vee finds herself in stranger and stranger situations with no memory of getting there, she begins to suspect that someone she knows has the ability to slide--and that this "slider" is using Vee to exact revenge on his or her enemies."Chills...4.5 out of 5 sparkly stars!My favorite quotes from Slide were too spoilery so I won't be including them in my review.Check out my blog for an interview with Jill Hathaway!Nereyda @Mostly YA Book Obsessed

I really enjoyed this book, but there was something about it that felt juvenile and incomplete. This is a short novel, but I really had to force myself to read it at times… and others, I couldn’t put it down. The pacing is all over the place.I can’t help but compare it to the ‘Wake’ trilogy by Lisa McMann. The same concept, similar characters (but less profanity.) Where the Wake trilogy was gritty, dark with flawed characters, ‘Slide’ was light, easily read, and skimmed around the edges of the difficult. It could have been so much more gripping, but the author did not take us down these dark alleys, favouring an after-school-special feel.Sylvia “Vee” was a likeable character for our protagonist, her inner musings relate to the thoughts all of us have through the torturous teen years. I’m not sure if she was meant to come off as grungy or emo with chipped black fingernails and pink hair, but none of that came through in the narrative. She was more Katy Perry and Avril Lavigne.It still astounds me that she did not even attempt to speak to an adult, whether it be her father or a police officer when faced with the seriousness of a murder of someone close to her. And with the events that happened after that, it’s a wonder she was even able to function. Especially since she was eating caffeine pills like candy – do you have any idea what those things do to your body and brain chemistry with long-term use? It lost the magic and realism from that point.While I loved the mystery of this storyline, and the pacing finally being sorted out in the second half of the novel – there was too much wrong with it contextually. Facts that should have been researched. Maybe this should have been set in an alternate universe to give a better, more impactful setting for the novel to take place.I really loved Sylvia’s younger sister Mattie – how she behaved and coped with the shock of her friend’s death. That was painted so realistically that I just about applauded. Two thumbs up.Zane as the leather jacket clad best friend (and outsider) was a little cliché. At least he wasn’t brooding or controlling or overly jealous. He was right on the cusp of me rolling my eyes. On the whole, I like him, but there was no stand out attraction to his character. I felt there could have been a bigger altercation between him and Sylvia so we could see what he was made of.Sylvia’s Dad – NOW let me do an eyeroll! He annoyed me from start to finish. That’s all I’m going to say, not only to avoid spoilers, but to stop me from devolving into a massive and unflattering rant…One thing that really annoyed me is that every time Sylvia did her thing, sliding into someone's head, it always seemed to be at the exact right moment for her to grab a clue to the mystery she was trying to work out. It is a kind of surveillance right? What happened to those times where the subject was doing nothing of consequence? It felt too convenient for me. Detective work is a lot of long hours researching and waiting for something to turn up. Sylvia had all of the clues handed to her. *face palm*I was waiting to find out about the mythology of Sylvia’s ability, or even her theories as to how she came to have this ability, but there was nada. I do like how she finally started to embrace it and begin to get a modicum of control. That was pretty cool.For me to give it a higher rating it would need a few tweaks, a dash of tension and angst and about a hundred pages longer to explore the themes and mythology. Maybe it gets touched on in the second novel ‘Impostor,’ but guessing from the title, it may just be another light mystery.I’m on the fence about whether I’d recommend this, with so many other engaging books out there, it’s not a big miss. But I’ll reserve judgement until I read the second instalment to see if it can sway my opinion either way.

(Source: Purchased on kindle from Amazon.co.uk for only 99p!)16-year-old Sylvia (Vee), suffers from narcolepsy, or so everyone believes. Instead, when Vee loses consciousness it's because she has `Slid' into someone else's mind and can see what they are doing. Unfortunately she can't control what they are doing, or hear their thoughts though.Vee has been coping with this problem by simply taking a lot of caffeine tablets, but the sliding is becoming more and more frequent. The only thing Vee can do to combat this, other than taking the caffeine tablets is to make sure she doesn't touch anything belonging to another person as this seems to trigger the sliding.One night Vee slides and finds herself in the body of someone with a knife in their hand, standing over the dead body of a girl that Vee recognises - her sister's friend Sophie.Who can Vee confide in though? Who would believe her? Or should she try to work out who the killer is on her own?This story had a very interesting premise, but it wasn't anywhere near as thrilling as the blurb suggested.Vee was a bit of a wishy-washy character. She had very few friends, and had no idea what to do with the information she had, so she basically did nothing. While this may be a realistic reaction to accidentally seeing someone get murdered, it doesn't really make for an edge of your seat thrill ride.This `sliding' as Vee called it had been going on for a long time, several years it seemed, yet Vee had no clue what to really do about it other than to not touch things belonging to other people, and to take multiple caffeine pills (which as a friend pointed out - she took way too many of - to the point where she could have easily put herself into cardiac arrest). After at least 3 years of this sliding, you would have expected her to have tried to use her sliding in some way, or to see if she could slide into a specific person etc. only she seemed to have done nothing other than try to stop it. Again; not exactly a thrilling tale.Vee was obviously upset over seeing Sophie murdered, but for me, telling no-one was not the right thing to do. Especially considering that this was someone she knew fairly well, and someone that her sister knew even better.The murder mystery part was also a little dull for me. From the blurb I expected a gripping, thrilling mystery, and instead we just got Vee basically doing nothing other than speculating. There were a couple of likely candidates for the position for murderer - a girl who made fun out of Sophie, a guy who had had sex with her, and another possible lover too, but there was very little to go on, and no obvious culprit. By the 75% mark I just wanted to know already, and I was getting pretty tired of wondering who did it.In the end the murderer was not easy to guess at, but not for any clever reason, just because the murderer barely featured in the book at all. It was kinda like someone conversationally telling you at a bus stop `they caught that killer you know; he lived next door to my best friends hairdresser.'; mildly entertaining, but not exactly nail-biting.Otherwise the ending was okay, though not exactly happy, and like the rest of the story was pretty mediocre.Overall; a less than thrilling, paranormal YA murder mystery.6.5 out of 10.

The action begins on the first page. From the beginning you are completely engrossed in the story.The characters in this book are amazingly developed, they all have this feel of having dark hidden secrets and show good and bad of their personalities. Sylvia is a lovely character and her humour and confidence really makes her a character that the every day teenager can connect with. Zane appears to be that dream boat every girl dreams of and Sylvia is shocked he's looking at her to guide him through his new school, it could be a coincidence... There really is too much to say about how well you can connect to the characters but Hathaway makes it possible to have just that little bit of sympathy for almost all of them, even those characters you may not particularly like at first as opposed to the ones you may like but then dislike! It really is a bumpy ride of good and bad characters and which side they decide to show.The book is brilliantly written and paced. Everything unfolds logically making it a smooth but accelerating read. It holds the concept of having a predictable ending but having the ability to change course in a matter of words. The ending was not the cliché kind of ending but instead had the potential to lead on to further stories which I will certainly look forward to reading.The concept of the book being based on a girl who has Narcolepsy may not give every reader a great first impression but this honestly is just a case of reading it and deciding for yourself if this is for you. I thought the whole Narcolepsy was very original and managed to create the perfect unique plot. I have never read a book quite like this and it was brilliant being able to set aside the common books based on deluded girl's ideas of true love and picking up this book about murder and vengeance, which can still appeal to every reader as it includes your common genre's like romance and adventure. However this book can not be compared to anything I have read, it really does have that element of originality.I'm honestly shocked that this book doesn't seem very popular. I understand it is the authors first novel (Which is shocking as it was so well written!) but if you are reading this review you honestly have to give this book a chance.This book left me shocked and had a big impact on me, this review doesn't do it justice really!I would recommend this for 13+, I think younger readers would have been able to grasp the concepts and it was brilliantly paced which ensures an easy read. I also feel much older teenagers would enjoy it too, it really has the ability to cater for a wide range of ages.Please just pick this book up and try it for yourself, I'm so glad I found this book and it is one I can not recommend highly enough!

Easy read but also very gripping, could be done in one sitting. Was recommended by a family member and did nit disappoint

Usually i'm not interested in this genre of book but it was really well written and I really enjoyed it.

One of the best books I've ever read! Keeps you drawn in all the way to the end!