Ms. Smartarse's Reviews > Imaginary Girls

Ruby has always been Chloe's hero: her big sister, who took care of her in place of their alcoholic mother. She was the one person everyone in town listened to. But our heroine was special, because she was Ruby's most beloved little sister. Everyone knew that the way to Ruby's heart was through kindness for her sister.

But then two years prior there had been a terrible accident, which culminated with the two sisters getting separated. Swimming in the reservoir was very dangerous, but Chloe had still done it. After all, if Ruby said she wouldn't drown, then what had been there to be afraid of? Apparently, Chloe's classmate's dead body...



I wanted to read a horror story, but didn't really feel like tackling anything by Stephen King. In hindsight, I probably should've, since this one was definitely not something from the horror genre. Mystery or thriller with a liberal amount of supernatural sprinkled over it, maybe. If anyone ever made this into a movie, the story'll definitely demand one of those utterly creepy soundtracks.

All in all, a rather disappointing book. Ironic really, because it was written fairly well, and the characters were all very interesting and 'wonderfully flawed'. It's just that I had no patience for the lengthy descriptive passages that were supposed to create a creepy atmosphere. It felt as if the author was stalling for something.

Case in point, the scene where Chloe decides to swim the length of the reservoir, and eventually discovers London's dead body.

The water spread out all around me, familiar and warm. As I swam I didn’t keep my eyes open; I knew the way. And then I felt it, all at once, how as I darted forward the water turned cold, seeming at least ten degrees cooler than before, and I knew I’d gotten close to where Ruby always said we’d find the center of Olive. Its heart, she used to say, was in the middle of the reservoir, at its deepest, bottommost point.

... and after that we get another two pages about a sunken town called Olive, complete with Ruby's mysterious/creepy stories about its demise.



Score: 2.4/5 stars

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the story, but I could barely muster the patience to wade through it. Plus, at one point, things start to get awfully predictable when Chole starts repeating one of Ruby's phrases ad nauseam. Oh ... and it was YA in genre, chock full of teenage angst and high school drama. I really have to stop putting so much of it on my to-read list.