Mini-Review: Shallow Pond by Alissa Grosso

Author: Alissa Grosso

Genre:  Contemporary, Mystery

Pages: 336

Published: July 8th, 2013

Publisher: Flux

Rating: 2/5 Stars

Source:  I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

"Barbara “Babie” Bunting is constantly mistaken for her sisters, but she’s determined not to end up like her family. She doesn’t plan to stick around Shallow Pond after graduation, and she certainly won’t be ruined by a broken heart. That is, until fellow orphan Zach Faraday walks into the picture, and Babie can’t deny their chemistry.
When her oldest sister, Annie, comes down with a mysterious illness—initially dismissed as “love sickness”—Babie and Zach start investigating what exactly killed the girls’ mother and why their late father became so consumed by grief. What they find changes everything"~Goodreads

It is going to be next to impossible for me to talk about this book without any spoilers.  But I'll give it a try.   I went into this read expecting a contemporary mystery with deep dark family secrets because, well, that's what the blurb says.  However, it turned out to be far more complicated and convoluted than I ever imagined.  I really wanted to like this one.  It has a great premise.  Small town girl meets mysterious new boy.  Together, they uncover a life-shattering secret.  Drama and mystery ensue.  Actually it was more like whiny, self-involved girl meets new boy with crazy unbelievable back story and discovers she has an even more unbelievable back story (and not unbelievable in a good way). There were so many twists in this book that it was hard to see how everything would fit together in the end and it really didn't for the most part.  To make matters worse our main character, Babie, kept jumping to every possible conclusion except the correct one in each situation. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't just talk to her older sisters about what was going on.  It was infuriating.  Speaking of sisters don't get me started on Annie and Gracie.  Annie is a lifeless character who just mopes around the house all day and refuses to see a doctor even though she's been sick for months.  Gracie is spoiled, bitchy and lacks the capacity for human compassion. 

Then we get to the big event of the book, which incidentally is not finding out why Annie is sick.  I can't tell you what that event is because some of the most interesting parts of the book involve the build up to said event.  Of course then everything goes completely downhill.  By the time I got to the main twist in the book everything was so far out there that I had completely lost interest. I felt like I had been completely mislead about the plot, it felt gimmicky and ridiculous.  I know I sound like I'm being harsh but I just had such high hopes for this book.  I feel the same way I would feel if someone handed me a horror movie and it ended up being a romantic comedy with no warning.  That being said you may read this book and be totally blown away by the twists and turns.  They just weren't for me.  If I can say anything positive it is that the pacing was good and for awhile I really was eager to find out what was going on. I just wish the plot and characters would have been more to my liking.