ARC Review: Some Quiet Place by Kelsey Sutton

Some Quiet Place by Kelsey Suttion
Published: July 8, 2013
Publisher: Flux
Pages: 336
Source: Netgalley
My Rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can’t weep. I can’t fear. I’ve grown talented at pretending.

Elizabeth Caldwell doesn’t feel emotions . . . she sees them. Longing, Shame, and Courage materialize around her classmates. Fury and Resentment appear in her dysfunctional home. They’ve all given up on Elizabeth because she doesn’t succumb to their touch. All, that is, save one—Fear. He’s intrigued by her, as desperate to understand the accident that changed Elizabeth’s life as she is herself.

Elizabeth and Fear both sense that the key to her past is hidden in the dream paintings she hides in the family barn. But a shadowy menace has begun to stalk her, and try as she might, Elizabeth can barely avoid the brutality of her life long enough to uncover the truth about herself. When it matters most, will she be able to rely on Fear to save her?

My Review: I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I thought that the idea was interesting and unique but I wasn't sure how well it would work. Having a main character that can't feel anything was something that I worried about because how was I supposed to enjoy the story if I didn't feel anything for the character? Thankfully that wasn't much of a problem.

The concept of Some Quiet Place was unique. The summary had me itching to read this book. Elements and Emotions as living creatures that answer summons was so different from anything I've read before. It was actually very believable too. It was very easy to imagine Emotions and Elements walking around the world.

As I said before, I was a little worried about having a main character that couldn't feel any emotions, but I actually ended up liking Elizabeth. She lives with her mother, brother, and abusive father. That family was so horrible to her but for some reason she wanted to make them happy by pretending to have emotions. Even though she couldn't actually feel anything because of the wall of nothingness, it was clear that she cared about certain people. It was a little difficult to care about the side characters. I felt nothing (kind of like Elizabeth) when her only friend died. I knew it was supposed to be sad but I wasn't actually upset about it.

There was a love triangle in this book but it only bothered me a little bit. It was very obvious who she would end up with at the end. Joshua was sweet and all but I liked Fear much more than him. Fear really seemed to care about Elizabeth and he wanted her to feel something. He is an Emotion so he knows all about the things that Elizabeth sees.

The were two twists at the end. The first one was very obvious and I guessed it pretty early on in the book. The second one was more of a surprise. It's always nice when a book can surprise me. The ending was very well done. For most of the second half of the book I couldn't put it down. The first part was a little slow, but the end definitely made up for it.

*I received this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.