Soul Beach by Kate Harrison
| Soul Beach by Kate Harrison | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Zoe Page
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| Summary: Alice would do anything to reconnect with her murdered sister, so an invitation to join her in an online limbo for souls is something she'll jump at, even if she, and you the reader, can't help but think it's too good to be true. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 272 | Date: September 2011 |
| Publisher: Indigo | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1780620060 | |
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Alice's older sister Meggie, a university student and erstwhile reality show star, was found dead 4 months ago. Murdered. After prolonged Police investigations and appeals it's time, finally, for the funeral, a chance to put Meggie to rest. But for Alice, this is just the beginning. As she's getting ready to bury her sister, she receives an odd email that's claiming to be from said sister. It's clearly a joke, and one in very bad taste at that, but when you're 16 years old and your best friend and confidante has been ripped viciously out of your life, you'll cling to just about anything. The invitation invites Alice to 'join' Meggie on Soul Beach…a Social Networking site for the young and the dead. And though she's sure it's a ruse, Alice cannot help clicking through to see who or what awaits her.
The answer pushes the boundaries of what is believable and Alice doesn't question it quite as much as she should, so that's strike one against her. Your first task, therefore, is to ignore reality for the duration of the book, and just go with the highly dubious flow instead. And that's where it gets interesting. Alice starts living two lives, her boring normal one where she goes to school and avoids her parents as much as possible, and her online one where she loses herself on a tropical beach among a gaggle of beautiful dead kids, her sister included. Drawn in by the mystery and intrigue of it all, she gradually starts to spend more and more time with her new online friends, but is she dying to get there really, in either sense of the word?
I didn't believe the book to be what it was on the surface, so read it eagerly, trying to pick up on clues as to what was really going on. There are several threads that distract you from the sisters' relationship, from the personal stories of other teens who are on Soul Beach to the extracts from the thoughts of the yet unknown killer. In the real world, Alice has physical friends and a boyfriend though they start to seem less important as she finds other people to hang out with. Her parents are there too, of course, but they don't feature much.
Alice is a great character who is easy to sympathize with. Her pain is real, and at an appropriate place for four months after the event (she's not weepy all the time, but nor has she moved on in any measurable way). She has the independence you would expect for a sixteen year old living in London and seems at times street smart and at times incredibly naïve. The other characters are a little more two dimensional (conversely the online ones seem more real than the real ones) but more in a fading into the background way than in an irritating under developed one. The thing that did bug me at times was the inconsistencies in how Soul Beach worked. The characters there are all airbrushed shadows of their former selves, and visitors such as Alice get the same treatment, so it makes no sense at all that though they couldn't see her human face, just a pixilated version, they could still see her bedroom behind her on the webcam. Alice doesn't question this either, so that's strike two. Other things, like Alice being able to 'hear' the waves on the beach even when offline were more easily explained, especially if you've suspended disbelief for the sake of the story anyway.
Though this is her first teen book, Harrison has written several successful adult titles including the popular Secret Shopper series. This book is a little different given its audience, but she pulls it off well and there's only one point where it seems like a grown up speaking in a teenage voice (a reference to a 1930s film I'm not sure most people currently in high school would get). For the most part, Alice's thoughts and behavior seem extremely authentic, as does the website (ignoring its claim of being a portal to the afterlife). The book reads extremely fluidly, and it captured my attention though, as stated, I had my sleuth hat on and was treating it as a mystery, to see if I could figure it out before the characters. Unfortunately, by the last page I don't think either of us had a clue what was going on. I had galloped towards it with such speed, shunning sightseeing in favour of another few chapters, that I felt winded at the end when there was not even the slightest hint of resolution.
Soul Beach has a lot going for it from a highly intriguing story line to a delightful cover – if that's how you judge your books, this one will jump into your hands. What it doesn't have, however, is a satisfactory ending, predictable or otherwise. It left me turning the spare pages at the end of my proof copy, just to see if there was a special surprise waiting for me. Further investigation online has highlighted the fact that this is the first in a trilogy, but I would still expect it to end and be a story in its own right, and I don't think this is. You might think you're going to be getting a nice self-contained story but I was left frustrated with the abrupt finish, not least because there's no release date for the others yet. The book is quite long, especially for a teen read, so I understand why it couldn't have gone on much longer, but even if they'd answered just one of the many unresolved questions (Who killed Meggie? Where has Triti gone? What happens to those older or younger than the teens? What's the deal with Sam? Who are 'they' who run the Beach?), that would have been something.
I would like to thank the publishers for sending me this book which was good apart from an ending that left me craving more. Maybe that is exactly what they were aiming for.
For equally interesting Teen reading, The Declaration by Gemma Malley comes highly recommended. Like Soul Beach it's the first in a trilogy, but unlike this one it reads as a whole story in its own right (and has the benefit, if you just can't get enough, of the other two already published and waiting to be read…)
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You can read more book reviews or buy Soul Beach by Kate Harrison at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
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