Review : Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : Nobody But Us
Author : Kristin Halbrook
Publisher : HarperTeen
Publication Date : January 29th 2013
Goodreads - The Book Depository

Bonnie and Clyde meets IF I STAY in this addictively heart-wrenching story of two desperate teenagers on the run from their pasts.

They’re young. They’re in love. They’re on the run.

Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger....

When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can’t run fast enough.

Nobody But Us, told in alternating perspectives from Will and Zoe, is an unflinching novel, in turns heartbreaking and hopeful, about survival, choices, and love...and how having love doesn’t always mean that you get a happy ending. Described as “beautiful, heartbreaking, and exhilarating” by Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF, Nobody But Us will prove irresistible to fans of Nina Lacour, Jenny Han, and Sara Zarr.

Personal Thoughts

It's no secret that contemporary YA novels and I are absolute best friends. Whenever I get the opportunity to read a contemporary, I jump to grasp that opportunity. This was the case with Nobody But Us. Having loved the sound of the blurb, I nosedived into this book as soon as I got a copy of it. I went into Nobody But Us expecting something, but the book ended up delivering something I was definitely not in the mood for.

Zoe is 15, Will is 19. They are in love. Wanting to save each other from their respective problems, Will decides to run away together with Zoe. Although Will has everything planned for their road trip, he doesn't realize that he's going to come across so many obstacles that will put him and Zoe in the face of danger.

Zoe was this smart young girl who was being physically abused by her father. She was this sweet and very naive girl, not sure of what to do. I sympathized with her because it seemed like she wanted nothing more than to be loved by someone because no one had ever really bestowed affection upon her after her mother's death, not even her father. So, when Will started to show signs of interest in her, she's somewhat glad because knowing that someone was vying for attention made her happy, in a way. While I thought Zoe's character was understandable considering her young age, Will's wasn't. At first, I thought it was sweet that he was so willing to help save his girlfriend from the face of danger even though I knew how incredibly rash and illogical his other decisions were. Over the course of the story though, I started viewing him as much as a threat to Zoe as was her father. His violent nature began to transpire and the little liking I might have had for him completely evaporated. For those of you who, like me, hated Travis Maddox from Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire with a fiery passion, know that Will was very reminiscent of him although his violent tendencies were nowhere as excessive as Travis. I felt like Will was a younger version of Travis. The thing is, Zoe saw and recognized his anger issues and his possessiveness of her and she often acted very scared when he would burst out into anger, but she never did much. That's sort of when I began to dislike her character. I cannot stand a character who refuses to see her boyfriend's destructive personality.

I don't think it's right when books romanticize abusive relationships. I don't care if it's only fiction, but every book sends out a message and idealizing such relationships in YA is wrong because these are aimed at young teenagers. That's exactly what Nobody But Us does. Some of you may think that I'm reading too much into this, but after seeing so many reviewers swoon over Travis Maddox claiming that they "needed a Travis Maddox in their life" has me very worried about what kind of material young girls (and older ones) are being exposed to.  Regardless of the abusive relationship, I thought the characters made too many stupid choices. They never really gave much thought to as to what they were doing, especially Will. Even though he was technically an adult, he didn't seem to behave like one. The one thing I'm actually pleased with in this book was the ending. It's how Beautiful Disaster should have ended. Now, Kristin Halbrook isn't necessarily a bad writer. I think she has amazing writing skills considering how deftly she handled the dual narrative, but I do think she needs to give some thought to her stories themselves.

I'm in no way trying to trash this book because that's not my goal here. This could have been an interesting road trip kind of book, but Will ruined it for me. No matter how good a book is, if there's an abusive and violent relationship, there's nothing that can stop me from strongly disliking it. Overall, I thought Nobody But Us was one of the most disappointing debuts of 2013 because it simply wasn't the book for me.

Rating

Cover : 4/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 1/5
Writing : 3/5

Big thank you to HarperTeen and Edeweiss for the e-ARC of Nobody But Us