Review: Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1) – Sarah Rees Brennan

Posted 16 October, 2012 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review: Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1) – Sarah Rees BrennanUnspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan
Series: The Lynburn Legacy #1
Published by Random House Publishing on 11 September 2012
Genres: Contemporary, Paranormal, Young Adult
Pages: 370
Source: Kindle Purchase
Buy on Amazon
3 Stars

Summary from Goodreads:
Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.But all that changes when the Lynburns return. The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

Unspoken is a book I actually have a lot of trouble rating and reviewing. On one hand, I love the author, her sense of humor and her writing. On the other hand, I had a very hard time connecting with any of the characters here, even though they all had both positive and negative character traits.

Unspoken didn’t manage to get me all that invested in the mystery of the Lynburns, and found that I didn’t really care about the budding romance. So what to do about a story that is certainly very well written, with some really funny dialogs, and a world building that was very well done? And I actually still don’t know. Let’s start with the beginning, then, shall we? I need to rate this, and I don’t want to only rely on the fact that the author usually is one of my favorites!

Kami is a strong female protagonist, and she has this really weird thing going on, she can talk to a guy called Jared in his head, and he answers. For the longest time, she thought he was just her imaginary friend, but she isn’t ready to let him go – it feels like he’s a part of her soul. Kami is smart and quick-minded, but she is also very stubborn. And because she wants to become a journalist, she thinks it’s OK to be very nosy,  not take ‘no’ for an answer, and go against her loving parent’s best advice. For once, though in a YA novel, there are actually loving parents and sibling who are present! At least in Kami’s family. And I love the interactions between her dad and her particularly, he’s a goofy, funny dad, and he loves his children dearly. Kami kind of annoys me, though, because when she needs more information about something, she doesn’t really listen to her mom, but dives head-first into solving a big mystery on her own.

Good thing Rusty, Angela’s big brother is teaching the two best friends some self-defense! It really comes in handy. Angela is the typical beautiful girl, but she is quite withdrawn from boys, and she prefers to take a nap in place of almost any other activity. I kind of like the fact that Angela is so lazy, but it also makes her a little bit one-dimensional.

One day, after Kami has started the school-paper and has decided to write a piece on the Lynburn family – a family that has been a part of her village forever, but who has left town around 17 years ago – she bumps into a guy who is running around with a camera, Josh wants to be the paper’s photographer. And, of course, his last name is Lynburn. Strange things start happening after the Lynburns arrive back, one of them being Kami’s imaginary friend showing up in the flesh.

I think some of the things that bothered me in this story are the same that bothered me in Team Human, namely the politically correctness that seemed to have been added to show a certain kind of polish. A foreign-looking character – check; a gay character – check.

I know quite a few people were upset with the ending – even calling it a cliffhanger – but at that point, I just couldn’t get myself to care anymore. View Spoiler »

And even with all this intrigue and mystery, I just never got all that invested in this – neither in the story, the characters or the plot. I can’t really explain why, and I know a lot of people loved this book to pieces. I hope I’ll like the next one, because I know I am going to give it a chance. And because I wasn’t able to enjoy this as much as I wanted to, I think it is only fair that I give it 3 stars.

Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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0 responses to “Review: Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1) – Sarah Rees Brennan

    • I’m glad I’m not the only one who is confused 😀 I have loved other books by this author, and maybe that’s part of my ambivalence concerning this one.

    • You know that a lot of people really loved this, though, maybe it’s just me… If you do read it, I hope you’ll like it!

  1. I know a lot of people who really loved it though, so you should definitely still give it a chance. I think sometimes, my expectations are too high… Especially with an author I really love.

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