ARC Review - Twigs by Alison Ashley Formento

Twigs by Alison Ashley Formento

Series: Standalone

Expected Publication: Merit Press on September 18 2013

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary

Pages: 272

Rating: DNF (0/5 stars)

One pint-sized girl. Ten supersized crises. And it’s high noon.

They call her “Twigs,” because she’ll never hit five feet tall. Although she was born early, and a stiff breeze could knock her over, Twigs has a mighty spirit. She needs it, as life throws a whole bucket of rotten luck at her: Dad’s an absentee drunk; Mom’s obsessed with her new deaf boyfriend (and Twigs can’t tell what they’re saying to each other). Little sister Marlee is trying to date her way through the entire high school; Twigs’ true love may be a long-distance loser after a single week away at college, and suddenly, older brother Matt is missing in Iraq. It all comes together when a couple of thugs in a drugstore aisle lash out, and Twigs must fight to save the life of the father who denied her.

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I couldn’t bring myself to finish reading Twigs. I managed to plough through half of the book before setting it aside with a sigh of exasperation. My problems mainly stem from Twigs herself. She’s an asshole. She’s judgemental and rude and mean for no reason. She hits a guy she’s never even met with a car on purpose. She’s inconsiderate and most of her narration is complaining about something or other, though she never considers that an alternative to complaining might be getting off her ass and doing something about her crappy life.

As well as Twigs’ less than stellar personality, I thought the plot was exceptionally unexceptional. There never seemed to be anything happening. On the surface, the Matt storyline should be exciting and compelling. I, as the reader, should want to know what happened to him. But, though Twigs expressed her distress at Matt’s disappearance several times, I never got a good impression of what she actually felt. She didn’t seem to care about finding Matt, so neither did I. Though the Matt plot was the one that stood out most to me, there were far too many other sub-plots going on at once. It felt as though the book lacked a central plot and was more of a concoction of sub-plots thrown together haphazardly. They didn’t cohere or make sense – the drama between Helen and her husband, Twigs’ absentee, alcohol father and neglectful mother, her boyfriend putting distance of the physical and emotional nature between them. They all seemed very sub-jointed. It is entirely possible that this problem was resolved in the latter half of the book, but I didn’t feel any desire to find out.