Sylvia Sweet

This book is fascinating. I read it for English class, but I still found it extremely immersive. Obviously, due to the differences in time period and writing style, it wasn't a page turner or anything but the prose were beautiful and I enjoyed writing essays on it.

Very raw and sensitive. Which should be positive, but its exactly why I didn't enjoy it. If you dislike emotional books that are extremely focused on people's feelings and innermost thoughts then I wouldn't recommend. However, if that is your thing, you'll probably like it. I do feel that a more valid reason for me to dislike the book is how Owns handled Chase's death. (Spoiler, by the way) She didn't give it the psychological importance that murder deserves. Murder isn't easy on the human mind. Often times, it destroys you even if you aren't punished by jail time or the death penalty. You still live with the guilt. That wasn't illustrated. (Perhaps that was the point though, because Kya was so detached from the usual human experience and mindset?) I honestly hoped that Kya would be caught and punished because I was certain she had murdered him. Her unbending belief that the people holding her in jail were inexcusable and ridiculous annoyed me to no end. And her murder of Chase was not self-defense. She didn't even wait to see if he ever came back to bother her again and act accordingly. If he had come back and tried to assault her, and in the spur of the moment she killed him, that would've been self-defense. Instead, she made a calculated plan to murder him. That's just plain murder. What Chase did to her was inexcusable, but so is murder.