Far From You

Name: Far From YouAuthor: Tess SharpePublisher: Disney HyperionSummary: Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice.The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick.The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery.After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina...and about the secret they shared.Review: Far From You is the first novel from debut author Tess Sharpe from Disney Hyperion. This book had me rapidly flipping the pages to find out what happened next. It is the story of teen Sophie Winters whose life changed in an instant. That moment is when her best friend Mina is murdered. At seventeen she has endured a lot. At fourteen she narrowly survived a car accident, but she escaped with an addiction to Oxy that controlled her life and took her a couple years to defeat. It’s because of this addiction and because of her past that nobody wants to believe what Sophie is trying to tell them: she was clean and has been clean for months. She was not using and she did not drag Mina along for a drug deal. Mina’s death is not her fault. She cared too much for Mina to ever drag her into that part of her life.The way that Far From You is written is one chapter is written in present-day and the following chapter is a flashback, though these are at various times throughout the last few years. At first I wasn’t sure that I would like this format—but Tess Sharpe knew what she was doing, it worked perfectly for the type of novel that she was writing. Without being told what’s happening, you are given the chance to actually see what happened. You get to live in current day with Sophie as she tries to discover what has happened, but also see the past unfolding.It’s a combination of contemporary and mystery/thriller. The balance was absolutely perfect. I can’t lie—I am a total contemporary junkie! But the added mystery behind what happened the night that Mina was murdered heightened the impact as well as my interest. I couldn’t wait to put the pieces together and figure out the puzzle of what happened in Sophie’s past along with Sophie who was trying to figure out what happened the night that Mina was murdered. I thought this would inevitably lead to what happened on the night that Mina was killed and Sophie survived and I was right. The plot twists were unexpected and this has easily become one of my favorite reads of 2014.--Jen, [...]

Sophie Winters has been in pain since age fourteen. That pain has been physical, spiritual and emotional. It started when her best friend's brother was driving and they were hit by another driver. Sophie wasn't wearing her seat belt and was terribly injured. Her leg and back will never be the same. Trev and his sister Mina weren't badly hurt and he's felt guilty ever since. Sophie ended up addicted to pain medication, but the only person who noticed was Mina, but then Mina reads her like nobody else can. They became friends when she moved to town after her dad died. Sophie saw her sitting alone and tear-faced at lunch and befriended her. They've been extra close ever since. When Sophie crashes and burns from drugs and Mina finally dares to confront her, she goes to Oregon and rehabs with her aunt. It's brutal going through withdrawal, but she holds on by reminding herself how long it's been: six months, three days, nine hours. When she returns home, gaining everyone's trust isn't easy. One night she and Mina make a detour on the way to a party and Mina is murdered by a man in a ski mask and Sophie's world destroyed. Not only has she lost her best friend, and when she's able to be honest, the person she really loved, but the killer planted Oxycontin in her pocket after beating her senseless. Sophie is stuck in a rehab facility even though she never relapsed. Neither of her parents believe her, but she's determined to fight back and find out why Mina was killed and who did it. Her efforts to do so are alternated with flashback chapters that flesh out her relationship with Mina. With Trev's reluctant help, he's been in love with her for years, after all, she unmasks the killer and in the process solves another murder case, the story Mina was working on that got her killed. Sophie darn near gets killed herself in the process. This is an amazing first book. It combines mystery, a girl's struggle with addiction and a love story seamlessly as well as doing a very good job of making it next to impossible to figure out who the killer is. Sure there are sexual references and some strong language, but if you're a librarian, do not let them prevent you from adding this book to your collection. This is a sweet, but sad love story blended with a dandy mystery. It will appeal to lesbian and bisexual teens in particular, but should have a much wider audience and serious consideration for a young adult Edgar nomination.

Apelando pro lado emotivo, Far From You é contado muito por flashbacks que se entrelaçam ao presente pra montar a relação de Sophie e Mina e o segredo que elas compartilhavam - que, sério, não era segredo algum, pelamor.Como pano de fundo, tem uma investigação caseira feita pela própria Sophie. Com a ajuda de secundários esquecíveis, ela refaz os passos de Mina, que a levaram até sua morte, e enquanto isso lida com a dor da perda, da descrença das pessoas com quem se importa e com a adicção aos remédios.A maioria das análises sobre esse livro dizem que ele é triste, do tipo devastador, mas não chegou a tanto para mim. É uma história bem conduzida, com elementos sólidos de mistério que me fizeram virar as páginas pra entender o que estava acontecendo, mas quanto a relação de Sophie e Mina, não chega a ser muito memorável. O suspense da identidade do assassino de Mina é bem trabalhado, mas nem por isso deixa de ser previsível. Passei bons momentos imersa na leitura, mas está longe de entrar pra minha lista de favoritos.(Gostei que a deficiência física da protagonista é de fato relevante para a história, não só uma característica jogada a esmo e nunca mais mencionada. Não, Sophie lida com as consequências de um acidente de carro em seu corpo por todo o livro, assim como os outros personagens).Quem curtiu As garotas que eu fui, da mesma autora, pode curtir Far From You também. Os dois tem algumas semelhanças – na dinâmica das relações e até em uma das personagens que poderia muito bem ser a mesma nos dois livros - , mas eu diria que o primeiro é mais intenso e também melhor de romance.

I love the thrill of murder mysteries; the constant guessing and the suspicion that takes over whenever a new character is introduced. Everyone is a suspect, and it makes for one heck of a reading experience.The thing with this book though, is that there is a murder and, okay, there is a mystery but the real core of the book is not in either of those things. It's in Sophie's recovery. It's in Mina and Sophie's friendship. It's in the parts of the story I never expected it to be.The book dabbles in flashbacks and does so gracefully, guiding us through Sophie's present-day quest for truth, her struggle to stay clean, and her hurt as the world continues to blame her for Mina's death. Then it thrusts us through the past: the car accident, Sophie's addiction, Mina's murder and the tumultuous friendship the girls shared. We're thrown into a timeline so wrought with pain and love, that it's hard not to feel the grief the characters do.It was an intense thing for Sophie to manoeuvre through her unsteady relationships to try to get to the bottom of Mina's death, including roping in Mina's older brother who, like most people, believed Sophie was responsible for Mina's death. I felt shaky alongside Sophie as she was forced to approach these people and delve deeper into the tangled web Mina had left behind. It was interesting to see how much Mina kept secret, and about the sides of her not even Sophie got to see.As I said though, the real story is between Mina and Sophie. I was eager for each flashback between these two, because their friendship was so intense and moving. I loved how the intricacies of their relationship were revealed so slowly, scattered through the pages in tantalising sparseness. It only made Sophie's loss feel that much more real.The romance in this book was another aspect I thought was amazingly done. It met a surprising end and I was so happy with the direction Sharpe went in. It was unexpected, unique, and just so very perfect for the story.Though I enjoyed the murder mystery aspects, I found myself craving the character-focused chapters so much more and I was glad that the investigation took a back-seat to the flashbacks of Sophie and Mina's friendship.The reveal at the end was a little predictable, but since I wasn't particularly invested in that side of the story anyway, I didn't mind so much. And the ending itself was brilliant: poignant, beautifully scripted, and splintered with heartbreaking closure.

Far From You is a prime example of books written aimed at a Teen / Young Adult audience which can pursue an audience far older than teenagers and still do incredibly well. I am in my early 30s, and devoured this in one sitting without any problem! I believe that Far From You is a debut novel which makes it all the more impressive (and me all the more envious if I'm to be honest!)We have two main characters - one alive. One dead. Sophie is our living character and she's had a fairly rough life including two very traumatic accidents. One would be bad enough but two? And in the first she herself received some fairly cracking injuries. But in the second? In the second, her best friend Mina died.Sophie has been up and down since the first, nevertomind the second, and her past history with drugs makes it easy for everyone to believe that she relapsed and was responsible for Mina's death - that she was meeting her dealer in a deal that went south. But Sophie's clean! She has been clean for so long, and will update the reader about this regularly but it's so important to her - and so central to the storyline, where she sets out to clear her own name and find out what really happened that night that Mina died...I would really recommend this to read, thoroughly enjoyed it!

The best way I can describe this book would be to call in enthralling, because it really was. From start to finish this book weaves an intricate and enthralling mystery. It pulls you into the pages and makes you instantly connect with the characters.The blending of past and present time lines made for a page turner, and having Sophie as the main character was fantastic. She was a complex character who was battling on many different levels, which just made you feel connected to her and her story.What struck me so much about this book, was the fearlessness of Sophie. When so many people thought she was lying, blamed her even, she stuck firmly to her goal of finding Mina's killer, and that made me love her as a character. She was dynamic and I loved that she wasn't just a do everything right kind of character, she had flaws and that was fantastic. It made her story so much more interesting.The mystery part of this was fantastic, it was written in such a brilliant way that it kept me turning the pages, and things were revealed at just the right time, which made the pacing flawless. It was also full of surprises that I didn't see coming, so that was fantastic.This book has definitely made me want to pick up more YA mystery in the future, because this book was mildly addicting.

This is nearly a 5 star book for me.The story is brutally realistic, with a murder mystery, a drug addiction, and some complicated sexual relationships. It'd make for a great high school essay about the secrets we keep, for ourselves and others. It's a beautiful, heart-wrenching, emotionally challenging story. It's also non-linear, with moments from main character Sophie's past layered in and among the current storyline. I did find this a little frustrating as the story wound closer to the conclusion - mainly because the present explained some of the past events in enough detail for me to get the gist, and the actual retelling slowed the pacing down quite a bit.Still, there's lots to love about this book (even the ending, which had me sobbing). I definitely recommend for fans of emotional contemporary YA stories!