BookSirens Review : This Side of Tomorrow by Sally White

Life isnt fair, and neither is death.

Synopsis:

When seventeen-year-old Nebraskan, Rachel Sutton moves into her new home in Maine, she quickly discovers it is the former residence of Noah and Ethan Thompson, teenage brothers recently killed in car crash. Brothers who have yet to move on.

Ethan, spiteful and jealous, is obsessed with Rachel, and Noah, guilt-ridden and gorgeous, is trying to save his brother’s soul. As Rachel spends countless hours with Noah, and dates Parker Redding, a popular football player, she finds herself torn between her feelings for the living and the dead.

One fateful night, Rachel must choose. Will she embrace her life on earth with those who love her? Or find out what’s on the other side?

Thank you to BookSiren’s, who sent me a copy of ‘This Side of Tommorrow’ by Sally White in exchange for an honest review.
I received no compensation for this review.

Hiya bookish people!

This is my first book from Book Sirens – and I was kinda underwhelmed. I signed up and felt like I immediately had to choose a book, and This Side of Tomorrow caught my attention. Opening the PDF did take me a week or so, but it took me way way longer to try and get through the book.

It was a ghost book and I loved the angsty romance that poured out . . . There aren’t nearly enough ghosty YA books that are romantic and suspenseful and dark without making me want to close it five pages in. I was caught up in the love triangle ( love square? ) between Rachel, our female protagonist, Ethan, our evil antagonist ghost brother ( who kinda felt like there must be a lot of sexual tension there because he is the perfect Bad Boy^TM but also we don’t ship this because it would be purely abusive ), Noah, our lovely friendly boy-next-door ghost brother who is super cute but sadly dead, and finally Parker, the only alive love-interest.

And apart from the fact that the author wrote a Paranormal YA book, which isn’t often found but overly wanted, I kinda didn’t like it.

The writing, dialogue and plot kinda felt really stitled. It was almost as if Sally White was telling us a story off the top of her head without knowing where she was taking it next. There was so much potential for this, but I also think, from the writing style, that the author seems kind of inexperienced. And by this, I mean the plot was overly YA. What do I mean by this? The main character, Rachel, is a bland, and selfish character who is ‘ordinary’ who had literally three boys after her in different ways. How cliche. The romance was so cringey – it was overly romantic, there was no awkwardness, and every character seemed to know exactly what to say that was just ‘perfect’ unless they were ‘left speechless’. It kinda hurt to read.

There wasn’t a lot of development from any of the characters that I read, and it tied back to the plot being quite stilted, too.

I did enjoy it but I am starved for any decent YA paranormal romances. I struggled to fully get through this novel, but the potential is great, so I am giving it a 2.5.

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I’ll see you between the pages.