I received this ARC from Publisher for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Read Between the Lines by Jo Knowles Published by Candlewick Press on March 10th 2015
Pages: 336
Source: ARC from Publisher
Amazon-Indiebound
Goodreads
Does anyone ever see us for who we really are? Jo Knowles’s revelatory novel of interlocking stories peers behind the scrim as it follows nine teens and one teacher through a seemingly ordinary day.
Thanks to a bully in gym class, unpopular Nate suffers a broken finger—the middle one, splinted to flip off the world. It won’t be the last time a middle finger is raised on this day. Dreamer Claire envisions herself sitting in an artsy café, filling a journal, but fate has other plans. One cheerleader dates a closeted basketball star; another questions just how, as a "big girl," she fits in. A group of boys scam drivers for beer money without remorse—or so it seems. Over the course of a single day, these voices and others speak loud and clear about the complex dance that is life in a small town. They resonate in a gritty and unflinching portrayal of a day like any other, with ordinary traumas, heartbreak, and revenge. But on any given day, the line where presentation and perception meet is a tenuous one, so hard to discern. Unless, of course, one looks a little closer—and reads between the lines.
My Thoughts:
I love it when I pick up a book thinking I know what it’s going to be like but then get an unexpected reading experience. That happened with Read Between the Lines by Jo Knowles. As I said on twitter, I found it incredibly unique and totally fascinating. I couldn’t put it down.
In Read Between the Lines, both the story and the structure caught my attention. The book takes place over the course of a day. It’s basically ten stories from ten different characters. Each story has overlapping characters and events. As the book progresses and the reader gets more perspectives, more and more connections are made. The more you read, the more you know. I loved this.
But what I really loved was the way many of the connections are not spelled out for the reader. All the pieces are there but Knowles doesn’t always come out and say it on the page. God bless authors who trust that teens are smart enough to figure it out!! The connections make the book come full circle, linking stories in ways I didn’t expect. So, so great.
And the stories! Each fit the unique voice of it’s narrator but also managed to create a cohesive voice for the whole book. How cool is that? AND, each story relates to the title and cover in some way. I mean, there’s some one giving the finger in each story, but it’s more than that. Each person has secrets. There is more to them than the casual observer knows. You have to read between the lines! (Sidenote: How amazing is it that the title and the cover work together to mean something more than they do individually. Like the stories!)
Read Between the Lines does an excellent job of illustrating that things aren’t always what they seem. I was just so impressed with everything about it.
Twitter Thoughts:
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