The Walls Around Us

Wow. I really did not like this, and I'm kind of stunned. I adored [b:Imaginary Girls 8603765 Imaginary Girls Nova Ren Suma https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1289841294s/8603765.jpg 13473833] and generally enjoy following Nova Ren Suma online. Normally, I'm all about the atmosphere that Suma creates, the tangible ghostliness. But instead of atmosphere, I think I just got...bad weather.It just never hit a right note. In theory, The Walls Around Us seemed to be built on the same pieces of Imaginary Girls that I loved - the relationships between women, mysterious deaths (and resurrections, so to speak), and an overall eerie atmosphere. But I never felt a connection or any actual interest in the characters. Part of this might of been intentional in the case of Violet, as there's a very good chance she's a sociopath. But, if that's the case, Suma should have gone all out with it. As it is, Violet is just a kind of mean, kind of icy girl. I was a kind of mean, kind of icy girl but I didn't kill anybody. I don't think its a spoiler to say that we know that Violet (or Vee) is guilty of something from the beginning of the story, but I never really felt her guilt. Normally, I'd blame it on the fact that I sympathize with kinda-cold-kinda-mean girls more than I should, but I didn't sympathize with Violet. I didn't give a fuck about Violet, honestly. The one chance we got to really understand Violet's guilt was taken away through blacked-out memories. I'm not trying to be the one to call for more gore and violence in YA, but I needed to feel that one on a much more visceral level. Violet's guilt is important for the conclusion of the story, and without it the ending just isn't satisfying.Though, Violet's actual crime is the betrayal of her friend. Which brings me to Ori. Ori who is so sweet and so kind she's willing to take decades in prison for a crime she didn't commit for a girl who doesn't really give a fuck about her. Who is perfect at ballet even though she doesn't like the attention it brings her, who will do anything for her sociopathic best friend and whose slightly scary boyfriend is still obsessed with even after her death. She's not remotely relatable, not even in her belated anger towards Violet. Her cellmate, Amber, who ends up telling her part of the story, might be the most interesting part of this book. I appreciated that she was a gray area between Violet and Ori's black and white, but I'm not really sure what her real purpose was. She told the story of isolation and entrapment, how easy it is to become imprisoned, one way or another. But she was this weird uncomfortable ball of arrested development, she was a child stuck in a story between two women, and it just didn't click together.I'm dumbfounded by how much I dislike this. I dislike it so much I don't want to think about it. Part of me wishes that instead of being in the style of Suma's ghostly magical realism, The Walls Around Us was an all out horror story. Four kids wandering into a haunted juvenile detention center, one wants revenge, one is fostering a terrible secret, all you would have to do is nail down the rules of the supernatural aspects more and amp up the scares, and you'd have a decent horror flick on your hands. But that is not what I got. I got a vaguely uncomfortable ghost story about two uninteresting ballerinas, and I'm supposed to want justice for one and freedom for the other, but mostly I just never want to think about this book again.

“Because that was the night we went wild. I remember how we fought and we cried and we hid and we flung ourselves through windows and we pumped our legs with everything we had and we went running as far as we could make it, which wasn't far.”

The Walls Around Us was a fascinating read focusing on the lives of three teenage girls. The cover alone draws you in. It is stunning. But under the cover is a fantastic book filled with mystery, heartache, and guilt.



So with this book, I definitely think you should go into with little-to-no knowledge of the plot. Personally, I think the synopsis gives away too much. I think you are better off going into the book blind. I think the book was more enjoyable for me because I had not reread the synopsis prior to starting the book.

This is another one of those alternating perspectives that all intertwine in some way towards the end of the book. And Nova Ren Suma is a fantastic writer. She just has a way with words that pulls you in and keeps you entertained, but also guessing as to what is going to happen. There were so many quotes and lines in this book that were beautifully written. The writing was definitely a large part of my enjoyment of the book.

The characters in this book are amazingly written. You really feel and see the guilt, the fear, the anger, and the hopelessness in the characters. I will not go into specifics because you really should know as little as possible about the characters going into this book. But the writing is just phenomenal, it really brought you to the feelings these girls were having and what they were dealing with.

While this book has the alternating perspectives, I feel like it does it in a unique way. You follow one character for 3 or 4 chapters before you switch to another. I really liked that we got to follow a character for longer before we switched. You really got to go deep into what was happening with them rather than flipping back and forth. It also added to your growing feelings and attachment to the characters.

Overall, this was a beautifully written book that I really enjoyed. The writing and the characters were done really well. I definitely will need to look into reading more of Nova Ren Suma's books.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This book seemed to have less of an actual plot than just...vibes. It's successful at creating a unsettling atmosphere, but not as much at telling a coherent story. I'm often a sucker for a ballet book, but the parts of this story that could have been the most interesting to me (the actual details of how one of two best friends that might have been suspects in the murder of two of their classmates ends up in detention, while the other escapes suspicion) are glossed over. It's not what Nova Ren Suma was trying to do, and I get it, but that didn't make it any more satisfying to me.

I would give this book a 3.5 (all these updates Goodreads and you still can't give us 1/2 stars?). It was a struggle in the beginning to get into because I had no idea what was going on (what was real, what was hallucinations/dream) and it gave me a real headache. I had to put the book down and I didn't come back to it for months. Then I picked it back up in October because I though hey this could be a good Halloween read. Once I started understanding what was going on I had no problem speeding through the book. I wanted to know what happened. Who was innocent, who was lying? And I got my answers, sort of. There is one question that didn't give an answer but alas I'll just have to live with it. The writing is good though I felt the storytelling most likely intentionally made to be misleading/confusing to create tension and add to the creepiness (I didn't care for it). There can be creepiness and tension without heading causing scenes.