New Release & Review:
Dismantling Evan by Venessa Kimball

BookCrushin is happy to help spread the word for the newest book by Venessa Kimball, Dismantling Evan, a YA contemporary novel. Check out our review below & be sure to add to your TBR list!

 

Dismantling Evan by Venessa Kimball

Category: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publication: January 13th, 2015
Purchase: Amazon

Life is unstable…
…What will be the trigger to dismantle it?

When high school senior Evangeline “Evan” Phillips moves half way across the country with her parents to a quaint town in Texas, it should be a chance to start over.
It should be.

Typical of Evan, she doesn’t share her parents’ optimism. Always the loner, she is prepared to hide behind work at the school newspaper until graduation. That is the seemingly bulletproof plan until she meets her new neighbors, Gavin and Brody Ferguson.

The more Evan gets to know her neighbors, their band of friends, and frenemies, the more unsettling her new high school and community gets in Braxton Springs, Texas.

As Evan unwittingly digs deeper into the lives of those around her, her own skeletons begin to surface leaving her vulnerable and scrambling to keep her own sanity and reputation. Will Evan be able to get control over her spiraling secrets while discovering friendship and love for the first time?

Or will the issues and pressures of life as a band of not-so-average teens in a very typical high school become too much, resulting in the tragic dismantlement of an entire community and Evan herself?

Dismantling Evan is a fresh and edgy work of literary fiction that snapshots how life as a teen in modern society can be unstable and the social issues and pressures revolving around them can tip the fleeting stability of society over the edge.

 

Spoiler-Free Review:

[book rating=3.5/5.0]

Dismantling Evan is an intense book. It was emotional and could be a little bit a of a trigger with the bullying and mental illness issues the book delves into. But Dismantling Evan is a very important book! It is real, raw and it really made you feel for the characters.

The book started slow for me as I just couldn’t relate to the teens and their emotional recklessness, but it beat me down and then I just had to know what was going to happen. The character development was definitely the strong point, as I eventually felt for Evan and just wanted her to come out on top. Teen life can be cruel, then again so can life in general. Sometimes, it’s just harder to deal and recover when you haven’t lived long enough to have those skills to cope and move on.

One of the most poignant themes of the novel was mental illness and how our society deals with it. Evan basically is moved from her hometown where everyone knew about her breakdown. Her parents think that letting her have a fresh start would be beneficial for her and for themselves. One thing that rang so true was that as a society we don’t want to talk about mental illness, we are ashamed of it and we try to hide it from others. Her parents kind of wanted to put their daughter’s issues in the past and hoped a drastic move might make all the difference in all of their lives. Sometimes, I felt her parents were being selfish, sometimes I felt Evan was. This book just shuffled my feelings all over the place.

The other theme is bullying…and we as the readers got to experience the affects. It was heart wrenching. It also helped develop the heartfelt and sweet relationships between Evan and the side characters.

I want to say so many things, but the story needs to be read with an open mind and I don’t want to influence another readers perceptions. Know this, Dismantling Evan will take you on an emotional journey and you should have some tissues on the ready. Everyone should read this story, young adults and adults alike as it will expose you to real life issues.

I did have a few issues, that kept this from being a solid 4-star read. Mainly, it was long, probably could have used a little bit more editing to cut some repetitiveness and have the story flow a little better. Please do not let this deter you from reading as this story and this ending was worth it!