Earlier this year, I saw Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow somehwhere in a publisher’s cathalogue with soon-to-be-published books. The blurb sounded interesting to me, it has something mysterious. It therefore went straight to the TBR, even though I barely read YA anymore. Because that’s what I thought it was, YA with a bit of a crossover to another genre. Did it still grap my attention?

Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow
Published by Penguin on May 28, 2024
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9780593855720
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery, Thriller, Young adult

Dark romance, high stakes, and plot twists abound in this paperback original YA thriller that’s perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover.

It’s been months since accident that killed Ella’s best friend Hayley, and Ella can’t stop blaming herself. Now Ella is starting back at school and everywhere she looks is a reminder of her best friend, including Sawyer, Hayley’s boyfriend. When Sawyer offers an olive branch, Ella is shocked, but knows she doesn’t deserve his kindness.

Then the school psychologist requires that Hayley’s closest friends join him for a grief counseling group, and Ella and Sawyer are forced together. After a few sessions, they start to grow closer, until Ella realizes something horrifying…

She’s in love with her dead best friend’s boyfriend.

As Ella discovers that nothing Hayley told her about Sawyer was true, she also sees something in him she finds irresistible. Perhaps it’s his grief. Or maybe his desires, cut short by tragedy. Or could it be something dark and twisted Ella can’t turn away from?

This dark, romantic thriller is perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover and Laura Nowlin.

My expectations were quite neutral admittedly. After publication, I barely saw this book anywhere, neither on English blogs, nor on Dutch blogs. On social media neither actually. However, the things I have seen about this book were quite modest, people were not explicitly negative, but not blown away either. I was therefore somewhat hesitant to set myself expectations, apart from this book being character driven. For this part, I indeed had some expectations as most character driven books show character growth and tend to be very emotional.

This book indeed was emotional for most part. This story follows Ella and Sawyer who grief the lost of Hayley, thier best friend and girlfriend respectively. When the school counselor forces Hayley’s friends to come together and talk about their grief, they both reluctantly agree. Ella believes she and Sawyer are the only ones who knew Hayley best. She also believes Sawyer is bad news because she feels attracted to him. After bumping into eachother a lot and therefore spending more time together, their mutual chemistry is undeniable. So, Ella finds herself in love with her best ffriend’s boyfriend. But what if Sawyer has some twisted secrets of his own?

These characters have been written fine. POV’s are switched alternately between Ella and Sawyer, which already provides you with glimpses of the way this story will unfold. Sawyer should be a red flag from the start, seen from Ella’s POV. It seems that Ella is grieving Hayley more than Sawyer and that she struggles more with it too. When the story progresses, it gets clear that there’s something totally different going on. Besides the obvious grief, there’s nothing more to these characters it seems. If there is, it’s not elaborated in depth. Okay, Sawyers family situation is, but Ella stays quite two-dimentional the entire book.

Furthermore, the plot is pretty average as well. For the longest time, nothing really happens. The focus was solely on Ella and her grief, which is fine as I was intrigued by it. At about halfway into the book, the plot takes a huge U-turn. It rapidly picks up speed which should be interesting, but is not. It’s quite late and the turn of events is quite unbelieveable. How can everything turn upside down so quickly? Moreover, the final parts of this story feel incredibly rushed, there was not much of a build-up to it. At least, not for me. This book is marketed foor fans of Colleen Hoover and I see where this is coming from.

This book is written fine nevertheless. The chapters are quite short and the pacing is alright which makes this a quick read. The used language is not complicated either. The book therefore fits the YA genre perfectly. It’s definitely a YA in terms of everything: romance, characters and plot. I believed this to be a crossover but I was in the wrong here. I prefer multiple POV narration if it’s done well. It indeed has this narrative, but I didn’t feel any intrigue towards one particular POV. It didn’t make much of a difference for me here.

Everything We Never Said by Sloan Harlow is a pretty fine read. It has emotion to some extend, the characters are written okay, the writing fits the genre and the plot can be exciting for the younger readers. It has some trigger warnings though. I enjoyed reading this novel, albeit it quite unbelieveable in terms of the plot. It takes a drastic turn in both pacing and events which makes it feel like it’s coming quite out of nowhere. This makes me not the most suitable reader for this book, because I’ve moved on from books with shallow characters et cetera. I strongly agree on the book being marketed for fans of Colleen Hoover as it gives off similar vibes. Again, this book is not bad, but it’s a better fit for a different audience.