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A review by casstalksbooks
Let's Never Speak of This Again by Megan Williams
4.0
(4.5 stars)
Thank you so much to Text Publishing for my copy of this book!!
‘Let’s Never Speak of This Again’ follows Abby, a sixteen-year-old who has a pretty good life. Sure, her grandma’s slowly forgetting important things, and her relationship with her mum is always tense, and maybe she accidentally kissed her cousin’s cousin on the weekend. But life is good when she has her best friend, Ella, to rely on…and some potential flirting with Ella’s brother, Will!
Then, new girl, Chloe, arrives and Abby is the one who gets to show her around. This is perfect! A new friend who she can introduce to her other friends. But Abby wasn’t prepared for the strong and fast friendship that Chloe and Ella have, which leaves Abby feeling left behind. In a moment of anger and loneliness, Abby wishes that something bad will happen to Ella. And when it does, guilt hits Abby like a punch to the gut and she’s left to figure out what she’s feeling and what matters most to her.
I loved this! Abby is such a relatable character! She questions her own kindness, she’s in her head a lot, she worries that her friends will eventually get sick of her and replace her, and she thinks and says things that she doesn’t mean in the moment. These are all incredibly real and common experiences for teenagers and young adults, which made Abby an amazingly well-rounded and important character.
I worry that I’m a jealous and petty person who only pretends to be kind. I worry that it’s only a matter of time before I slip up and say what I really think before I can stop myself. I worry that when my friends find out who I really am, they won’t like me.
Seeing her relationship with her mum progress into a nice and loving space, and watching as Abby realises that friendship and family are the most important things, not whether you’re someone’s “best friend” all of the time or not, was a joy to read about.
’You don’t boss people around or say things have to be this way or that way. You always want everyone to be having a good time and you don’t like to cause a fuss. So I can see how people would say you’re easy going. But you think about things a lot, even little things, so I don’t think it’d very easy going to be you.’
The structure of this novel was a tad jarring. It is not written in chapters, but rather sectioned into small parts, each with their own subtitle. I did get used to it as the novel went on, and actually enjoyed not having chapters. However, I did find that some of the subtitles were taken verbatim from the section, which felt too repetitive.
Overall, I really enjoyed this!
Thank you so much to Text Publishing for my copy of this book!!
‘Let’s Never Speak of This Again’ follows Abby, a sixteen-year-old who has a pretty good life. Sure, her grandma’s slowly forgetting important things, and her relationship with her mum is always tense, and maybe she accidentally kissed her cousin’s cousin on the weekend. But life is good when she has her best friend, Ella, to rely on…and some potential flirting with Ella’s brother, Will!
Then, new girl, Chloe, arrives and Abby is the one who gets to show her around. This is perfect! A new friend who she can introduce to her other friends. But Abby wasn’t prepared for the strong and fast friendship that Chloe and Ella have, which leaves Abby feeling left behind. In a moment of anger and loneliness, Abby wishes that something bad will happen to Ella. And when it does, guilt hits Abby like a punch to the gut and she’s left to figure out what she’s feeling and what matters most to her.
I loved this! Abby is such a relatable character! She questions her own kindness, she’s in her head a lot, she worries that her friends will eventually get sick of her and replace her, and she thinks and says things that she doesn’t mean in the moment. These are all incredibly real and common experiences for teenagers and young adults, which made Abby an amazingly well-rounded and important character.
I worry that I’m a jealous and petty person who only pretends to be kind. I worry that it’s only a matter of time before I slip up and say what I really think before I can stop myself. I worry that when my friends find out who I really am, they won’t like me.
Seeing her relationship with her mum progress into a nice and loving space, and watching as Abby realises that friendship and family are the most important things, not whether you’re someone’s “best friend” all of the time or not, was a joy to read about.
’You don’t boss people around or say things have to be this way or that way. You always want everyone to be having a good time and you don’t like to cause a fuss. So I can see how people would say you’re easy going. But you think about things a lot, even little things, so I don’t think it’d very easy going to be you.’
The structure of this novel was a tad jarring. It is not written in chapters, but rather sectioned into small parts, each with their own subtitle. I did get used to it as the novel went on, and actually enjoyed not having chapters. However, I did find that some of the subtitles were taken verbatim from the section, which felt too repetitive.
Overall, I really enjoyed this!