The Hemlock Girl

by C L Heckman

[chymerra]

I wasn’t expecting to like The Hemlock Girl as much as I did. To be honest, I thought that there was going to be no plot and the drama was going to be flying everywhere. I was right on the drama part. As for the plot, I was surprised. There was depth to the plot.

The plot of The Hemlock Girl is about Karissa and Jasper. Karissa is a junior in high school. Her plans for her junior year was to stay under the radar and keep doing what she was doing. Then she meets Jaspar and gets to know him. Falling for him, Karissa keeps Jasper in the friendzone. Until the day where she couldn’t and their relationship went beyond friendship. When a tragedy happens that affects everyone, what will happen to their relationship? Can it withstand what happens?

Let’s talk about the characters at first. I will admit that I found Karissa, Missy, Dakota, Paul, Jasper to be immature and annoying. But, they were supposed to be. They were teenagers. It was refreshing that a young adult book actually portrayed teenagers as teenagers.

I liked how the author took her time getting around to Karissa and Jasper’s relationship. I like how Karissa had to overcome her issues to agree to go out with Jasper. I didn’t like how she see-sawed for the majority of the book. In a way, she was messing with Jasper’s head. But, he was doing the same thing. I mean, he was dating Missy. Who I couldn’t stand.

I thought that the author handled Jasper’s attempted suicide with tact. She showed the effect that it had on the people around him and how they reacted to it. I was a little surprised that Karissa took so long to visit him when he was in recovery. I was also surprised at how angry Jasper’s mother was with her. But if my kid was in a fragile mental state and his on again/off again girlfriend showed up, I would have acted the same way. What I wasn’t prepared for was what happened at that visit. It broke my heart into little pieces.

The end of the book didn’t surprise me. I figured it would happen. I expected it sooner than later. The author did a great job at explaining what had happened in that gap. She also did a fantastic job of wrapping up the storylines. There were none left hanging, which is a huge pet peeve of mine when reading a book