The first book by Alice Oseman I’ve read was I Was Born For This, back in 2018. After, i’ve read all her other books, except for Heartstopper. These are graphic novels and not available as audiobook. So, inaccessible to me. Anyway, Solitaire was one of the other books by this author I hadn’t read yet, even though it has been comfortably sitting in my Kindle app for years and years. This book also got recently published in Dutch but I stuck with myEnglish copy. Did I still enjoy it, although I’m drifting away from YA?

• Title: Solitaire
• Author: Alice Oseman
• Publish date: 31 juli 2014
• Publisher: HarperCollins UK
• ISBN: 9780062335685
• Number of pages: 392
• Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

In case you’re wondering, this is not a love story. My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that’s all over now. Now there’s Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don’t know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don’t care about Michael Holden. I really don’t. This incredible debut novel by outstanding young author Alice Oseman is perfect for fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell and all unflinchingly honest writers.

This is Oseman’s debut novel and that was clearly noticeable. The writing is as accessible and easy to follow as in her later books, but I struggled a lot with the characters and the plot. I already started this book with little to no expectations as I’ve already read this author’s later novels. However, I still had a mediocre reading experience.

In this novel, we follow Tori, Charlie’s sister. As I don’t know Heartstopper, I didn’t know Tori’s character either. I started the Netflix series back in the day, but I just couldn’t make it through season 1. I understand the importance of this series to many people, but for me it was underwhelming and outright boring. I need more to happen in my series as I solely rely on the dialogues and audio description. I think for this one, the non-verbal communication is much more important and I miss that so yeah. Well, therefore I didn’t know Tori. Good to know, the events of this novel take place during or close to the events in Heartstopperr 4.

Tori has a lot of mental issues. This is literally no offense to anybody struggling, but I had a tough time relating to her character because of this. Tori is in denial of her mental struggles, at least that’s the impression I got. She probably feels ashamed to admit she needs help and to ask for it. This is understandable, but it makes the atmosphere of the book extremely depresing. I’m – thankfully – in good mental health condition, so that’s what made me struggle with this book. However, when weird things start to happen at school because of a blog called Solitaire, Tori is pushed out of her shell more. Still, it was hard to get to know her then. She sounds really boring to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel a connection to the other characters either. However, I think Michael is a good fit for Tori though.

Something else I struggled with, is the story itself. It feels like Oseman wasn’t sure about the direction of this book at all. It was contemporary, romance and mystery altogether and it wasn’t balanced pretty well. The plot was lost and therefore not intriguing that much. The only reason for me to continue reading was to find out who was behind Solitaire. The revelation was quite interesting, but still a bit odd in my opinion. It was a little too strange and unlogic overall.

As you can see, I was not incredibly impressed by Solitaire by Alice Oseman. I probably read it too late. I think I would have liked it better if I had read it a while ago. I guess it’s a combination of multiple factors: not being able to relate to the characters, feeling lost in the plot and drifting away from the genre. I know Oseman can deliver, because I’ve read her later novels. This was just more of a miss for me than a hit.