As She Fades | Book Review

As She Fades

Written by: Abbi Glines
Number of Pages: 270

Average Rating: 3.70 / 5 stars
My Rating: 2.5 / 5 stars

Published: April 3, 2018
Read in July 2018


Summary According to Goodreads

On the night of her high school graduation, Vale McKinley and her boyfriend Crawford are in a terrible car accident that leaves Crawford in a coma. They were supposed to spend the summer planning for college, for a bright future full of possibility. Together. Instead, Vale spends long days in the hospital, hoping Crawford will awaken.

Slate Allen, a college friend of Vale's brother, has been visiting his dying uncle at the same hospital. When he and Vale meet, she can't deny the flutter of an illicit attraction. She tries to ignore her feelings, but she's not immune to Slate's charm. Slowly, they form a cautious friendship.

Then, Crawford wakes up... with no memory of Vale or their relationship. Heartbroken, Vale opts to leave for college and move on with her life. Except now, she's in Slate's territory, and their story is about to take a very strange turn. 


My Thoughts

I have had some fair success with Abbi Glines in the past, so this one quickly made its way onto my list of anticipated releases. However, I was quite disappointed with this story as it was different than the synopsis leads you to believe. 

This novel is split into two parts, and without spoiling anything, I will say that I hated that she did that. It was almost as if she wanted to write two novellas and finish neither of them. I loved the first part of the story, although it took me a while to get into. Our main character Vale was nothing special, but I was intrigued by Slate (the love interest) and Know (her brother). The second part of this book was just a huge disappointment, and I would rather have seen the first part continued. If I am being completely honest, I skimmed the last half of the second part because my frustration made me too detached from the plot. 

As with all of her novels, this was a basic YA/NA contemporary that was a very quick read. In a contemporary novel, I expect the characters to carry the story - but too many of them were flat for that to happen. As I mentioned earlier Vale was fairly typical - blonde haired, blue eyed, girl everyone wants to be friends with - and I was more interested in her family than I was in her. Everything came easy to her, but she was unnecessarily dramatic. 

Also unnecessary? The excessive slut-shaming. The love interest Slate was a pretty typical "bad boy" player, but showed at least some growth. Ironically, I cared more about how Slate was feeling and what he was going through than I did about Vale. 

Overall, this novel was very disappointing and I regret having pre-ordered it. If the synopsis caught your attention as it did mine, ignore it, because it is very misleading to what actually happens. I don't know if it was just ignorance or deception, but it was very inaccurate. I would recommend this if you don't have any other contemporaries to read this summer - quick read, but not completely worth it.