Synopsis: Jem Halliday is in love with her gay best friend. Not exactly ideal, but she's learning to live with it. Then the unspeakable happens. Kai is outed online, and he kills himself. Jem knows nothing she can say or do will bring him back. But she wants to know who was responsible. And she wants to take them down.."
Before I go into this review I just want to apologise for how excessively long it's going to be, I just have so much (spoiler free) stuff to say.
Undone by Cat Clarke follows the story of Jem Halliday as she tries to come to terms with the sudden death of her best friend, Kai. Sadly, following a video published online outing Kai as gay, he commits suicide. As Jem's only and best friend she is distraught and contemplates joining Kai, until she discovers how vital it is for her to find out who is responsible for outing him so she can take them down.
At the start of this novel Kai is already dead and as a result we get to know him through Jem's telling of the past from the moment they met to the very last time she sees him. What I particularly loved about this approach is that even in the present day it didn't feel like Kai was dead because he remained such a massive part and key character of the story. I was able to remain connected with him and grow a greater understanding of why he committed suicide and the things he wanted in life for both himself and Jem, through letters he wrote for her before committing suicide. I found it such a refreshing element of the book as other novels I've read with a deceased primary character, such as Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, I've found it difficult to relate to and connect with the character. Typically the fact that the character is dead remains conscious in your mind, this however isn't the case with Kai.
I had mixed feelings about Jem. At one point I had so much sympathy for her and imagined how awful and depressed I would be if I was in her shoes, then at other points I found myself disliking her for becoming the very embodiment of the kind of people she despised and forgetting where she came from and what she set out to do. That however was okay because she wasn't the kind of protagonist that you have to develop a strong liking for because there is so much going on with the other characters that they all feel just as important.
Clarke really captured what school life is like for teenagers in the UK without taking a superficial and somewhat stereotypical approach, much like you see in American novels and TV shows. It's simply a case of unpopular kids, the inbetweens and the popular ones. But what was really interesting about the popular kids is that Jem comes to notice that people outside of their bubble don't really pay much attention to them, other than her, which is kind of funny because it raises the argument of are 'popular' kids in schools actually popular and considered so by their peers or is it simply a case of them making everyone assume, or assuming themselves, that they are?
In light of their popularity Clarke presents them as these shallow, perfect and attractive characters on the outside and then these fragile, caring and shelled characters on the inside and I loved that because at the end of the day they're human like everybody else - just because someone appears to have a near perfect life doesn't necessarily mean they do. They all have their insecurities, their flaws and things they're not proud of just like everybody else and it's great that Clarke captured that because you often find that YA characters are too perfect to be real and that can make it extremely difficult to connect with them - how are you supposed to love or hate a character that you don't consider possible in the real world?
I'd say that the only element this novel was slightly lacking was greater discussion of sexuality. Although it's discussed occasionally in Kai's letters and mentioned a couple of times by Jem, I felt that as the story is dominated by Jem's grief and her progression to getting revenge because Kai killed himself after being outed, that there should have been more about sexual orientation present in the book.
Finally, I want to talk about how gripping and insane the ending was; I just didn't see any of it coming. It was just so intense and tragic from the party in the woods onward. Everything that happened was such a massive surprise, there was no predictability to any of it and I found it so thought provoking and beautifully written and that's when I came to realise just how much I adore Clarke's writing style. There's a part of me that wishes there was a second book, even if it was simply a short novella, that picks up from the ending of this book and told from the point of view of a different character so I can find out what happens to all of the other characters. But at the same time I'm also so pleased that it's a stand alone book.
Ultimately, this is a passionate and gripping YA novel about love, betrayal and revenge and is guaranteed to keep you hooked from start to finish.
I give Cat Clarke and Undone ★★★★★
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