I met Ethan the night I was planning to kill myself. Pretty Inconvenient, when you think about it.

Grace wakes up in a white room. The last thing she remembers was talking to a man named Ethan and getting into his van. Trying to work out how she got there and how she can escape, Grace recounts the events that led up to that night. The life that slowly spiralled out of control.

At the heart is Grace’s relationship with her best friend. Sal is the good girl and Grace the wild one but things start to fall apart when Grace discovers her friend is keeping a huge secret. It doesn’t help that Grace seems to drop her friend when Nat comes along, but she does seem to try and make amends. And she really is a tragic character; self-harm is a central topic to this story. As far as she is concerned it’s just something she does but it’s clear how self-destructive a life she’s led. As she goes further into her story, she becomes more honest with herself, revealing more and more things that make you want to just give her a great big hug.

Entangled is not really about what has happened with Grace and Ethan but more about her life before. Having read a few books along similar lines, I’d worked out what the scenario was quite early on but it was still a fast, page-turning book, wanting to get to the bottom of Grace’s rollercoaster life. Even though I saw the end coming, I broke a bit at the hand holding. I think there was something rather genuine about it all. Even if everything was a great big mess.

I’ve been meaning to read Cat Clarke for a while now and I think I have all her books lurking on my Kindle now (if you fancy reading this it’s currently only 46p). One thing I liked was how relatable her world and the teenagers were to me. They seemed a bit more like how it was when I grew up (maybe the Scottish setting helped). Yes they do go to pubs underage (something that’s hell of a lot harder these days) and they aren’t living these perfect lives before the book starts.

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Shelve next to: Paper Aeroplanes by Dawn O’Porter

Source: Purchased