Entangled by Cat Clarke

Inside the Teenage Mind
review by Maryom

Grace has been kidnapped - or so she believes. She is being held in a stark white room by a man who ticks all the boxes for 'ideal boyfriend' - his appearance, clothes, even his name are exactly as Grace would choose. In between his brief visits with food, Grace has nothing to occupy herself other than a stack of blank paper and a large numbers of pens. Guessing that this is what her captor wants from her, she starts to write down the story of what brought her to the point of taking her own life....

An amazingly compelling story - the reader is teased along as Grace's life is revealed little by little leading to the fateful incidents of 'that night' when Grace's world finally crumbled apart.
I felt so sorry for Grace as her past story came to light - so many things have gone wrong for her - and then less sympathetic as I read of her attention-grabbing reactions (though even when I was thinking 'Oh, don't do that. Don't go there, Grace', I was more annoyed with her Mother for not noticing what was going on under her nose).
In some respects, Grace didn't come over as very nice - she drops and picks up friends as and when convenient, always feels her problems are more important than anyone else's - but the character felt more realistic for this.
I did sort-of guess the ending - and then quickly skimmed the last pages to check - but it didn't spoil my enjoyment.

An excellent debut novel that I'd recommend to teens and their parents for an insight into troubled teenage minds. I'm definitely looking forward to reading more by Cat Clarke in the future.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Quercus Books
Genre - teen,YA, fiction

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