Book Review: Slide by Jill Hathaway

Title: Slide
Author: Jill Hathaway 
Publisher: Harper Collins Australia/Balzar + Bray
Release Date: March 27th 2012 (US)/March 1st (AU)
Format: Paperback 
Source: Publisher for review (Thank you!)

Vee Bell is certain of one irrefutable truth—her sister’s friend Sophie didn’t kill herself. She was murdered.

Vee knows this because she was there. Everyone believes Vee is narcoleptic, but she doesn’t actually fall asleep during these episodes: When she passes out, she slides into somebody else’s mind and experiences the world through that person’s eyes. She’s slid into her sister as she cheated on a math test, into a teacher sneaking a drink before class. She learned the worst about a supposed “friend” when she slid into her during a school dance. But nothing could have prepared Vee for what happens one October night when she slides into the mind of someone holding a bloody knife, standing over Sophie’s slashed body.

Vee desperately wishes she could share her secret, but who would believe her? It sounds so crazy that she can’t bring herself to tell her best friend, Rollins, let alone the police. Even if she could confide in Rollins, he has been acting off lately, more distant, especially now that she’s been spending more time with Zane.

Enmeshed in a terrifying web of secrets, lies, and danger and with no one to turn to, Vee must find a way to unmask the killer before he or she strikes again.

An original debut with a fascinating premise. Hathaway's debut Slide will woo readers with its gripping murder mystery plot line. While truthfully, I didn't find it entirely mind-blowing, I'm sure fans of mystery books will love this.

Slide tells the story of Sylvia, 'Vee', who can literally 'slide' into people. She'll be able to see everything from the perspective of the person she slides into,and may, occasionally 'control' them. The whole 'sliding' into another person was executed extremely well, and it was definitely interesting reading about how she feels being 'inside' someone else's body.

Here's the part where I'm a little picky with; this was certainly a good mystery, but it's by no means a mind-bending and thrilling mystery. I'll admit that I didn't guess the ending, but you know the whole 'the most probable is the least probable' tactic you use to guess who the murderer is?( or maybe that's just me since I read & watch too much crime!) Anyway...it was pretty obvious who WASN'T the murderer, so...by process of elimination, it was easy to guess who was involved. But I was really curious about the reason for the string of murders, so that certainly managed to maintain my interest.

The characters were....written well but not necessarily memorable. My feelings towards Vee was more like 'Yep, she's a fine character, I don't mind her.'But there was nothing about her character that distinguished her from all the other YA heroines. And truthfully, I found Zach a 2D character. His role seemed insignificant and his characterization was just...bland. Rollins, Vee's best friend, was probably the only character that interested me. I just wish his relationship with Vee was explored a little better (I mean, they're supposed to be BEST FRIENDS, except I couldn't feel that 'best friend vibe' from them.)

And lastly, I wish the ending had a little more OOMPH. It had the potential to have such a profound impact on me ( since I recently read a book that had a similar ending and that was the deciding factor between a good and AMAZING book), but everything happened a little too fast and it just wasn't effective enough.

The review might sound extremely critical, but i really did enjoy it. It just wasn't enough to fully WOW me. Give this a try though! I know some people who absolutely ADORED this, and you might too!