Review | Unspoken (The Lynborn Legacy 1) by Sarah Rees Brennan

Kami Glass has always wondered if there might be a something a little wrong with her. Since she was born, she’s been talking to a boy in her head named Jared. When she was young, people said it must just be an imaginary friend. Now at 16, Kami is still having internal conversations with this boy but she’s learned to keep it to herself so that others won’t think she’s crazy.

When the mysterious and frightening Lynburn family moves back into Kami’s small English town after being away for a long time, strange things start happening. Animals are being sacrificed and someone is murdered. Kami is determined to find out who is responsible. But strangest of all is the revelation that her ‘imaginary friend’ is actually a real boy.

Unspoken is a very original story and a page turner. I thought the story itself was fantastic. A lot of the characters were likable, especially Kami. She’s smart and enthusiastic, and despite being surrounded by cute and sometimes mysterious boys, (because if boys are mysterious, it means that you’re going to want them more… wait, what? why does this happen?) Kami is not so wrapped up in her feelings for them that she’s not smart about it. I think we need more female characters like Kami in teen books.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t crazy about the execution of Unspoken. The writing seemed really choppy to me. I felt that many scenes ended abruptly and it sometimes left me wondering what had actually happened. The dialogue was sometimes hard for me to follow and I had to re-read a lot of paragraphs to figure out who said what and what they really meant. There were also vague implications of somewhat important pieces of the plot. But the implications were so vague that I wasn’t sure if they were really implications at all; and it wasn’t information that seemed to give away crucial pieces of the plot that were meant to be saved for the end of the book, which then left me even more confused.

That said, I am really looking forward to book two of this series. I like the story enough that I’m excited to see where Brennan takes readers next, and the snippets from book two that she has released on her blog have me even more drawn in. Brennan does not seem like an author who is afraid of making things difficult and messy for her characters. So… if you like a good story, and are willing to ride a bit of a jumpy train to get through it, then give Unspoken (The Lynborn Legacy #1) a try.

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Overall Rating: 1/2

Parent’s guide:

• Sex: some sexual tension between a girl and boy, light kissing, a homosexual relationship is briefly discussed
• Violence: animals are killed, someone is murdered and another person goes missing, references to sacrificing people for magical power, a girl is cut with a knife, a boy and girl are threatened at gun point
• Language: a few mild swear words, deity