Solitaire
By Alice Oseman
4/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
From the critically acclaimed creator of the Heartstopper series comes a vivid, clever, and heartfelt portrayal of what it's like to be a teenager today. Alice Oseman’s stunning debut novel Solitaire—which the Times (London) called "The Catcher in the Rye for the digital age"—is perfect for fans of Melina Marchetta, Stephen Chbosky, and Rainbow Rowell.
My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year—before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of exams and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people—I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that's all over now.
Now there's Solitaire. And Michael Holden. I don't know what Solitaire is trying to do, and I don't care about Michael Holden. I really don't.
Alice Oseman
Alice Oseman was born in 1994 in Kent, England. She completed a degree in English at Durham University in 2016 and is currently a full-time writer and illustrator. Alice can usually be found staring aimlessly at computer screens, questioning the meaninglessness of existence, or doing anything and everything to avoid getting an office job. Alice's first book, SOLITAIRE, was published when she was nineteen.
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Reviews for Solitaire
62 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5There are books out there that pull you in, books were you have to keep reading, Solitaire is one of those books for me. I do not have enough words to describe my love of this book. Solitaire, written by Alice Oseman, is about Tori Spring, a cynical teenager trying to navigate her life, with a brother who is having depression and anorexia issues. Along with having to deal with a new student, Michael Holden, and the mysterious group Solitaire.
The characters were relatable and convincing and the plot was completely engaging and believable. From Tori to Michael to Charlie and Lucas. I wanted to wrap myself up in this book and get lost. The characters made me fall in love with them and cry for them and root for them. I especially loved Tori, who reminds me of myself at that age. I cannot find books, or characters, now a days who represent teenagers or young adults dealing with mental illnesses. Solitaire has beautifully written characters dealing with mental illnesses. I am even more shocked that this book was written when Alice Oseman was 17 and published when she was 18. I think one of the most beautiful, and one of my favorite, quotes is:
"I mean, I'm still not one hundred per cent sure that I really want to wake up tomorrow. I'm not fixed, just because Michael's here. I still want to get into bed and lie there all day because it's a very easy thing to do."
Because you can still love someone, you can be friends with someone, but they cannot save you. No matter how much they want to at the end of the day the only person who can save you from feeling depressed is yourself. I'm glad Alice Oseman wrote Solitaire this way, I'm glad she didn't have this be a typical love story. Because it's not a love story, it's a story about finding yourself and learning to save yourself.
Alice Oseman has an amazing talent and I cannot wait to see what else she writes. I loved this book so much and it has easily become one of my favorite books, and one I will re-read very soon. Everyone needs to go out and read this book right away.
5/5 - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I think my expectations were high for this book, so I disappointed myself a bit. This book was well written, and well plotted out. I just didn't really care for the characters. I feel that if I was ten years younger, I might have better related to this book. I don't know. She was VERY cynical, and while I don't mind cynicism, the amount in here overpowered it. I'm glad I read it, but it was not my favorite book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One of those you just keep reading, until the end. If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to hardy@novelstar.top or joye@novelstar.top
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a very hard book for me to read. I didn't like the main character at all. Tori Spring tells the story and it would be hard to find a more pessimistic, self-absorbed character in fiction. She doesn't care about anything and all the people around her are just wallpaper for her boring, depressing life.We learn that her younger brother Charlie has gone through some mental health issues. He went from being obsessive to being anorexic to hurting himself. He is out of the hospital now but the family still has to force him to eat. I think Tori's parents are so concerned with Charlie's problems that they don't have the energy to notice that Tori is falling into a deep depression. Things get even more difficult for Tori when two boys enter her life. Lucas was her best friend when they were in primary school but she hadn't seen him for years until he transferred to her school. Michael Holden is also a new transfer to her school who wants to be her friend. He is another awkward, socially maladjusted teen. Then there is the new blog Solitaire which intrigues people. Solitaire instigates a series of pranks at Tori's school that all seem connected to her in some way. The pranks escalate from the annoying to the dangerous. But it isn't until someone gets hurt that Tori decides that she is going to find out who is behind Solitaire and stop them. She finally gets out of her own head a little bit. Reading this one was hard but I was encouraged at the changes Tori managed to make through the course of the book.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This author has managed to keep me up at night with 3 different works, and I'm absolutely fine with that.
2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I wanted to like this more than I did. A young girl and many of her friends are just going through the motions of school. A series of sticky notes leads the protagonist to a new guy and a website.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: A raw, vivid novel about a depressed teenager in the UK.Opening Sentence: I am aware as I step into the common room that the majority of the people here are almost dead, including me.The Review:Victoria “Tori” Spring doesn’t really like much. Honestly, she hates most things, from books to hipster clothing. Her two hobbies include sleeping and blogging, and she hangs with a group of friends that she rather despises being around. She’s sick of making an effort to be social, to be happy, when she’d rather live in her own personal pity party. She’s aware that she’s apathetic and pessimistic and can be downright awkward, but what can she do? When two people enter her life – one being Lucas, her best friend from primary school, and the other being Michael, a talented skater and proclaimed freak – her life is suddenly thrown into disarray.Then a blog pops up, and its the only thing the school can talk about. Solitaire.uk starts by playing harmless, funny pranks, like blasting songs over the intercom or hacking into the computers and replacing every screen with a picture of a half-naked actor. But then they start getting dangerous, and a point is reached where people start to get hurt. And Tori can’t help but notice that a lot of the things Solitaire is doing are centered around her interests.Victoria was a hard character to like. Yes, I get it, that’s kind of the point. But I like to think of myself as a generally optimistic person, and our personalities clashed pretty badly, seeing as she hated most everything. That being said, even I could sympathize with her plights, and the silent depression that was beginning to overcome her. She was a complex, rich character, but her mindset was so violently pessimistic. It was only when Michael began to become her friend that she started to soften, started to see things a tad bit better. This wasn’t centered on a love story, though there was a romance, which I liked. It focused more on Tori’s depression and how she was developing.There were multiple side characters, all of whom held some significance in the story. There was Becky, Tori’s supposed “best friend”. There was Tori’s brother, who tried to kill himself last year and is anorexic, obviously leaving a huge mark on Tori herself. He is healing, but he’s still going through a lot of pain, and only his boyfriend Nick is helping to get him through. Michael was an important one, Tori’s new friend, who helped her through her worst times. There was a whole “who is Solitaire?” mystery going on, but I basically figured it out a couple chapters in, so there you go.Altogether, I thought this was a decent read and that people will enjoy it. I didn’t like Tori very much, because our personalities contrasted so severely, but I enjoyed the overall plotline and the complexity of the characters. I enjoyed getting to see a glimpse of life in the UK – I’ve always wanted to visit! I think that the message got a little blurry, and I couldn’t really get a clear focus on what the author was trying to convey, but it was a good story all the same.Notable Scene:“Michael means ‘who resembles God'”, he says, “and I think that if God could choose to resemble any human being . . . “He stops then, right in the street, looking at me, just looking, through the pane of his glasses, through the blue and green, through depths and expanses, bleeding one million incomprehensible thoughts.” . . . he wouldn’t choose me.”We continue to walk.FTC Advisory: HarperTeen provided me with a copy of Solitaire. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.