Slide by Jill Hathaway

Slide by Jill Hathaway
Published by Balzer + Bray
Published on 27 March 2012
Genres: Paranormal, United States, Young Adult
Pages: 259
Format: eBook
Source: my home library
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RRP: $5.99

Vee Bell is certain of one irrefutable truth - her sister's friend Sophie didn't kill herself. She was murdered.

Vee knows this because she was there. Everyone believes Vee is narcoleptic, but she doesn't actually fall asleep during these episodes: When she passes out, she slides into somebody else's mind and experiences the world through that person's eyes. She's slid into her sister as she cheated on a math test, into a teacher sneaking a drink before class. She learned the worst about a supposed "friend" when she slid into her during a school dance. But nothing could have prepared Vee for what happens one October night when she slides into the mind of someone holding a bloody knife, standing over Sophie's slashed body.

Vee desperately wishes she could share her secret, but who would believe her? It sounds so crazy that she can't bring herself to tell her best friend, Rollins, let alone the police. Even if she could confide in Rollins, he has been acting distant lately, especially now that she's been spending more time with Zane.

Enmeshed in a terrifying web of secrets, lies, and danger and with no one to turn to, Vee must find a way to unmask the killer before he or she strikes again.

I’ve been thinking about this book for a LONG time (as in years) because I love the concept, and I built it up so much in my head and I think I assumed it was going to be SO GOOD…

So I was a little surprised to find it was a pretty typical YA paranormal murder mystery.

There’s the loner girl with the boy best friend/guy who’s clearly in love with her, the slut-shaming girls, the ex-best friend turned Mean Girl, the mysterious new boy with a secret, absent parents, and a supernatural power she can’t tell anyone about. While Vee also listens to 90s grunge and studies astronomy as a hobby, she sees her love interest Zane only as a way to make the other girls jealous of her for a large part of the novel.

The only thing this book has going for it is the pace and the red herrings. I couldn’t guess who the murderer was for a long time, and I felt like that part was done really well and it unravelled all at the right time. I wanted to keep reading it because of the mystery.

However, I felt like there were some things that weren’t resolved.

For example, everyone still thinks Sophie commit suicide.

And even though Vee did show some character growth in that she learned to embrace her gift/curse, I found it frustrating when she could all of a sudden control people when she slides into them, she never used the power for good. Like, taking over a girl passed out in a burning house and making her get up and run, which I was fully expecting her to do. But the ability to take over someone when she slides into them didn’t even factor into the villain’s demise. The villain was defeated by a complete accident, which meant that Vee had no agency and didn’t resolve her own plot. Even so, Vee did have a crisis of conscience when she realised how violating her power was, but this wasn’t explored for very long and was not a reason for her to not control people.

Overall I’m glad I read it because it’s been bugging me for years that I bought this book when I was super excited for it, and I think if you really enjoy very typical and solid paint by numbers YA paranormals, you might enjoy this one too, but don’t expect anything new or ground breaking or diverse in here.

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