Before We Began

by Tania Unsworth

There was nowhere to go and nothing to do. Absolutely, definitely nothing to do. Even the matter of our boredom - held up and studied from all sides - had long since been exhausted as a topic of conversation. We sat around the shed in a vacant silence, broken only by the rustling of Julia's fingers as she picked at the insides of the sofa. All we ever do is sit around I complained. Sophie Barrett lives an odd, cautious, life until the morning she arrives to find her colleague has committed suicide in the basement of the shop where they both work. The death raises frightening, long-buried questions that Sophie can no longer afford to ignore. To answer them, she must return to the summer she was fourteen and a friendship between three very different girls, bound together by time, place and a life-changing secret. Julia, all energy and swagger, Nancy, lost in her own peculiar universe and Sophie, the follower, fearful and admiring. But while they dream, events are already in motion that will propel them towards tragedy, taking their innocence and threatening their friendship itself.

Paperback

Published May 3, 2007

Reviews

[Sarah]

I don't know why, it's just not doing it for me. Nothing is happening and i'm almost halfway.

[Alisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story line is good, but this was a hard read for me. It is almost as if you are reading the diary of an adolescent girl. It bounces back an forth to quickly. One moment she is an adult in the present at the suicide of a friend and coworker then she is a fourteen year old somewhere with her friends. One moment the teens are in the shed of one of the friends then they stealing something from the local market then the main character is at home with her parents. There are also too many random characters. First she is witness to the suicide of Simon and then she is meeting Peter who only met Simon one time then Michaela is living with her and taking over Simon's job. There is Lucien, her ex and his mother who owns the shop and Ivy and the boys in the shed, the girls parents and someone else and someone else and someone else and all of these people just seem to be random in the story and then they are gone and you don't hear of them again.

I put the book down for a day and when I came back I had to re-read some of the information again because I was so lost I could not remember what was going on. I would not recommend this book unless you like jumping back and forth from time to time and character to character.

[Laura jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

IT TOOK A BIT OF GETTING PAST THE FIRST CHAPTER BUT ONCE I DID IT WAS A QUITE GRIPPING BOOK AND HAD QUITE A TWIST TOWARDS THE END WHICH I DID NOT EXPECT A GOOD HOLIDAY BOOK

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a strange one this! Dont start reading it if you are feeling depressed!