Preview Post- The Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride

The Tension of Opposites by Kristina McBride
"It’s been two years since Noelle disappeared. Two years since her bike was discovered, sprawled on a sidewalk. Two years of silence, of worry, of fear.

For those two long years, her best friend Tessa has waited, living her own life in a state of suspended animation. Because how can she allow herself to enjoy a normal high school life if Noelle can’t? How dare she have other friends, go to dances, date boys, without knowing what happened to the girl she thought she would share everything with?

And then one day, someone calls Noelle’s house. She’s alive.

A haunting psychological thriller taken straight from the headlines, The Tension of Opposites is a striking debut that explores the emotional aftermath of a kidnapping on the victim, and on the people she left behind."- summary from Kristina's site

The cover and summary are a bit misleading, in my opinion. It makes it look like a thriller and all suspenseful and stuff; it is not. Now, this isn't to say the book is bad, per se, just that it's not what I was expecting after looking at the cover and summary.

In the first chapter, which is all of like 9 pages, we find out that Noelle has been gone two years and then halfway through, we find out she's alive and is coming home the next day. This bothered me a bit because there's a difference between coming in at the middle of the story and being catapulted through a storyline. I barely had enough time to really think and care about Noelle being gone before it's revealed that she's coming back. It all happened way too fast.

After that, the book did get better for me, though again, it's still hardly the psychological thriller I'm being promised in the summary. In fact, there seemed to be only a few scenes where Noelle's kidnapping is brought up and the rest of the time, it's just usual high school drama- boys, mean girls, etc.

I honestly don't really know what to make of this book. I almost put it down because once Noelle was found and back home, it was like "What's the point?" Not much happened after that initial chapter for a while, but then things started moving again and I became more interested and invested in the characters.

A strong point of the novel was the romance. To start, I was pleasantly surprised to find out who the male love interest was since I was wrong on my first guess. The courtship between Tessa and the boy is slow and a nice change of pace from "OMG YOU'RE HOT LET'S MAKE BABIES WHO CARES WHAT YOUR INTERESTS ARE" that some YA novels tend to have.

I did enjoy the novel, and it was interesting to have the book be told from the best friend's point of view as opposed to the victim, but it just didn't really have the effect on me that perhaps the author was trying to convey.

I'm also contemplating just leaving this as a review. I don't even know why I bother doing previews when I just keep rambling, lol. So this is my review. YAY!! :D I did just kind of ramble and I'm not sure if I covered everything or made sense, so if there are any questions, feel free to ask.