Book Review! Far From You

Hi bookbugs!

Today I'm bringing you a review of the book Far From You by Tess Sharpe.

This book is absolutely amazing. I give it 5/5 stars.

Far From You is about Sophie, whose best friend Mina was shot by a man in a ski mask four months prior to the opening of the novel and everyone thinks it's her fault. Sophie is a recovering drug addict and the man who killed Mina left a bag of pills in Sophie's jacket, to frame her. When the story opens, Sophie is on her last day of a three-month stint in rehab for a drug addiction she has already beaten. She is ten months clean, but nobody believes her. The story follows Sophie as she tries to catch Mina's killer.

First of all, without giving too much away, there is some interesting sexuality diversity in this book. It is handled beautifully and poetically; and I loved it. The way Tess Sharpe handles addiction is equally as heartbreakingly beautiful. She has an incredible writing style and I devoured the book within 24 hours. I absolutely could not put it down.

At no point did the story seem slow or boring; and while the twist was not the most concealed, it was still a very enjoyable read. I particularly liked the fact that Sophie's hobby is gardening, which is not a hobby that YA protagonists often have. In fact, most YA protagonists have hobbies which are almost exclusively sedentary, so I appreciated this diversity very much.

Another thing to note about Sophie is that she identifies as having a physical impairment, the result of a car crash with Mina's older brother Trev when the girls were fourteen (Sophie is seventeen in the present telling of the story). This is also the reason she started taking oxycodone in the first place and was the catalyst for her developing her addiction. Obvious trigger warnings are disability, trauma, addiction, drugs and homicide. Approach with caution. 

I really felt for Sophie. At no point did I want to shake her or smack her, as I so often do with YA protagonists. She knows who and what she is; and she owns it. She doesn't relapse, she doesn't fuck up. She pushes away her parents which made me sad, but she does it not cruelly or with malice, she does it out of need for her own space- which I get.

All in all, I felt that this story was told beautifully and I wish there were more than 330 pages because I was not ready for the book to be over. I highly recommend this book- 10/10!


Until next time, happy reading!

Rhi