bestmessever
Written on Aug 14, 2020
Nine months. Two weeks. Six days. That's how long recovering addict Sophie's been drug-free. Four months ago her best friend Mina died in what everyone believes was a drug deal gone wrong - a deal they think Sophie set up. Only Sophie knows the truth. She and Mina shared a secret, but there was no drug deal. Mina was deliberately murdered. Forced into rehab for a drug addiction she'd already beaten, Sophie's finally out and on the trail of the killer. But can she track them down before they come for her?
- ISBN10 1780621655
- ISBN13 9781780621654
- Publish Date 27 March 2014
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 22 June 2016
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Hachette Children's Group
- Imprint Indigo (an Imprint of Orion Children's)
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 352
- Language English
Reviews
maggiefan
Written on Jun 18, 2019
Angie
Written on Oct 7, 2014
Far From You hooked me from the very beginning. It alternates between the present and random points in the past, showing us everything leading up to the night Mina was murdered. But more importantly, it slowly revealed the depths of Sophie and Mina's relationship. It's fairly obvious that something was going on between them, but it certainly didn't come about how I assumed. Their story was heartbreaking! It sucks how one person has to ruin it for everyone, but I totally believed Sophie and Mina's secret. Mina may not have always been the nicest when it came to this situation, but I definitely felt Sophie's love for her! I was much more invested in their doomed romance than I was in the murder.
The murder plot ended up being a double murder mystery to solve, since Mina had been obsessed with a kidnapping from three years prior. She believed the girl was dead and wanted to find out who did it, since the police let the trail go cold. Sophie picks up where she left off despite the danger she knows she's in. She can deal with everyone believing she's still a junkie, but she cannot accept Mina's murderer roaming free. I never figured out who did it, but I also wasn't shocked when it was revealed. In fact, I was pretty underwhelmed by it. It seemed kind of disconnected from everything, and I was hoping for more, I suppose.
In the end, I thought Far From You was wonderful. The mystery was engaging, but for me, the relationship between Mina, Sophie, and Trev (Mina's brother) outshines everything else. My heart ached for them so much! Their emotions were such a mess, and all over the place. And I loved how the author was able to make a bisexual character who didn't come across as wishy-washy or straightwashed. Bravo.
Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.
Amber
Written on Apr 18, 2014
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Far From You at first. I knew very little about it. But what I got out of it was a beautiful story about two best friends, one of whom is murdered one night, and the other accused of being the cause of it. Through a series of flashbacks, Sharpe introduces us to how the characters were before the murder, and she shows their individual struggles.
Sophie was a fantastic main character, with so much trauma and baggage, and yet still so much heart. I could have read about her for a lot longer than 350 pages. She takes whatever life throws at her - a bloody freight train – and by the end of the story she has battled so many different demons, and yet she still manages to come out of it stronger than ever. Honestly, she’s a character I will be admiring for a long time.
Read the full review on Books of Amber
Jo
Written on Feb 22, 2014
As I'm interested in LGBTQ YA, I was recently asked by Charlie of Charlie In a Book if I would be reading Far From You by Tess Sharpe. I looked it up to remind myself, and said no. From the description (above), it didn't sound like my cup of tea at all; not a fan of crime, not into reading anything to do with drugs as I am so against them. However, both Charlotte and Jim of YA Yeah Yeah involved me in their Twitter conversation about just how awesome it was, with Jim saying it's probably the best LGBTQ YA novel he's ever read, and I knew I just had to give it a go, despite massive misgivings. And, oh my god, it's amazing!
After being admitted to rehab despite being clean when her best friend Mina is murdered, Sophie has just been released after three months. Her only focus now is to find out who killed Mina and why. All Sophie has to go on is that the person Mina was meeting that night wasn't a drug dealer for her, but a source for a story Mina was working on for her internship at the newspaper. What was she investigating? Why would someone murder her for it? And how on earth will Sophie cope without her? The search for justice spurs her on.
Far From You is so, so good! Told in alternating chapters of present day and various points in Sophie's life, it's like two stories running concurrently; the story of Sophie and Mina's relationship and Sophie's battle with her addiction, and the story of finding out who murdered Mina and why. Because of this, it doesn't feel so overly heavy crime-wise, and it's more mystery thriller than crime anyway; no running against time to get yourself out of danger with lots of talking to cops, like I expected, but more trying to piece a puzzle together with the help of friends - though it's not Scooby-Doo either. The mystery was intriguing, and absolutely had me sitting on the edge of my seat as he story moved on and things were becoming more clear, but Mina and Sophie's lives before the murder were equally captivating.
I loved the way Sharpe wrote Mina and Sophie's relationship. Despite the fact they had their issues regarding sexuality, it didn't "feel" like an LGBTQ novel, by which I mean it just felt like two people who were into each other, rather than two girls who were into each other. Although I love most of the sexuality based LGBTQ YA novels I've read, there were some that felt like the relationships were different from any realtionship I could have as a straight woman. I don't feel that with Far From You. They're just two people. Sure, there are problems and fear, but when it was just the two of them, the romance felt like any other romance, which is exactly how it should be. Just wonderful. And the way they felt about each other... well, it's just inspiring.
As I said earlier in my review, I am really anti drugs. So this part of the story really put me off, even though Sophie was clean. I am so against drugs and the problems they cause, I do not want to know. But with Sophie, it wasn't a case of her trying something, and getting hooked, but a result of becoming addicted to the pain killers she was prescribed after being in an accident, which I found easier to swallow. It was so heartbreaking, seeing the decline Sophie goes into, and her reliance on the pills as a way to cope with how things are between her and Mina. It's such a difficult situation to be in, when everything hurts, physically and emotionally, and there's these pills a doctor gave you to make you better, that make everything go away. It's hard to fight an addiction when it's already there, but the hurt and the lies that come along with it... I find it so difficult to deal with - though when I was thinking, "What on earth are you doing?!" at Sophie, it was with sympathy rather than anger.
Back to the mystery! Oh my word! Just incredible! Especially towards the end. Sixty pages from the end, I had had my suspicions for the suspect for quite a while now, and none of the characters suspect this person at all. I was getting all antsy like you do when watching a movie and you want to shout, "Look out!", but for Far From You, it was "It's so-and-so, it's so-and-so! You're looking in the wrong direction!" I was so desperate for them to work it out before it was too late, before the pages kept going and danger would be on their door step. I was half right in my suspicions, but that's not to say that Far From You is predictable or obvious. There are a number of people it could have been, as discussed in the book, and as I discovered when talking to Charlie about her suspicions. And the part I was wrong about, woah! I did not see that coming whatsoever, until it was happening! I don't think I've ever been sat at the edge of my seat for a book more than I was for Far From You during those pages. My heart was in my mouth for Sophie as I had no clue what would happen next, while everything was slowly being revealed. Mouth open, heart racing, desperately thinking comeoncomeoncomeon! Just brilliant!
Such a fantastic debut! I loved the contemporary/romance entwined with the mystery thriller, it worked so well! I will definitely be reading whatever Sharpe writes next, no matter what the description say! So, so good!
Thank you to Indigo for the review copy.
Suz @ Bookish Revelations
Written on Dec 30, 2013
Ashley
Written on Oct 30, 2013
Far From You was really, really good! It hooked me in straight away. I immediately loved Sophie as a character. She's flawed, but interesting and really relateable. Her voice is honest and real, which I think is what makes it really easy to connect with her!
This book appealed to my love for mysteries. I really adore reading books where there's some big criminal investigation that the police are too stupid/uninterested to solve, so the teenager has to take over. They're not always realistic, but I adore them, and Far From You fit that bill perfectly! I loved trying to solve the case alongside Sophie by piecing clues together.
So you know how in the synopsis it says, "and about the secret they shared"? I totally didn't get that. When I read the synopsis I had a few thoughts about what it might be, but none of them were anywhere near the mark. It's revealed pretty early on what it is, but I have to admit, I didn't see it coming. But I think it introduced a really unique element into the story that worked REALLY well! What's in the spoilers below is about this 'secret'. I don't think it's a huge spoiler because everything gets revealed pretty early on (or at least enough of it that you can guess), but I'm putting it in spoiler tags in case you'd rather be surprised.
I LOVED that Sophie and Mina were actually romantically involved. It's a bit funny because something early on in the book (before this was revealed) made me think, "They act more like lovers than friends.." And it turns out, they are actually in love! I thought their relationship was so sweet, and it really broke my heart at the end because of what happens to Mina. I thought Tess did a phenomenal job of slowly building up Sophie and Mina's relationship so that it isn't until the end that we finally understand how much they meant to each other.
One of my favourite parts of the book was how it skipped between time periods. The chapters would really jump around, something like this:
* 6 months ago
* Now
* 3 years ago
* Now
* 3.5 years ago
* Now
You get the picture! It was a brilliant way of piecing the story together. The only thing I didn't like was that it did sometimes get confusing. Take the last few jumps for example (starting at 3 years ago). By the time I got down to the 3.5 years one, the first 3 year jump converted into "A long time ago" in my mind, so I wasn't able to quite place how they fit chronologically. So I knew that 3.5 years ago was "a long time ago" and I knew that 2 chapters ago I read another one that took place "a long time ago", but I couldn't quite place which one came first. I just sucked at keeping it straight.
But it was easy enough for me to get the gist of things and it didn't make the overall story confusing.
I think the one thing I wasn't totally sold on was the ending. It wasn't a bad ending, but it wasn't great either. I think the problem was that at first I was too confused to appreciate the twist. I wanted that shocked and surprised feeling, but I didn't get it because I was buried under confusion. When we learned the killers were Adam and the Coach, I was confused. I couldn't remember who Adam and the Coach were in relation to Jackie. How did they connect? I think the problem was that Adam and the Coach were such minor characters that it was easy to forget who they were and what connections they had to the characters/story. So instead of being delightfully surprised and thrilled at the end, I was left struggling to remember how they were connected to Jackie in the first place. And furthermore, I felt like there weren't that many clues pointing to Adam/the Coach. I mean, I didn't want it to be obvious, but I like getting that "Ohh, I totally see that now!" feeling at the end when it's revealed, and all the pieces click into place. That didn't happen for me in this book. I wasn't able to look back and see any clues pointing to those two.
If you like good mystery books and want one with a surprisingly passionate (and unconventional) romance, then I highly recommend Far From You! Even if the ending wasn't my favourite, this was still a great book to read. I think one of the best things it has going for it is that it's different. It's not like anything else I've read lately, especially when you find out what that 'secret' is! ;)