Natasha Preston jest jedną z tych autorek, o których ostatnio słyszałam wiele dobrego. Postanowiłam sięgnąć po jedną z jej powieści. Trafiła mi się przez przypadek w bibliotece właśnie "Uwikłana", która na pierwszy rzut oka wydaje się nie dla nas, a potem zaczyna się ją czytać i totalnie się wsiąka.
Grupa siedmiorga nastolatków tuż pod koniec wakacji postanawia spędzić weekend w domku letniskowym, który należy do ich znajomego. Ten wyjazd miał być odpoczynkiem od codzienności, bez trudów, problemów i trosk. Całodniowe leniuchowanie, wieczorne imprezy i sporo alkoholu. Niestety, już pierwszej nocy dochodzi do tajemniczego i bardzo brutalnego morderstwa. Ofiarami jest dwójka przyjaciół, z których przynajmniej jedno miało obecnych tutaj wrogów. Jak się okazuje każda osoba, która przebywała w domku miała motyw. Motyw i sporo mrocznych sekretów, które nigdy nie powinny wyjść na jaw. Wszyscy kłamią, by chronić własne interesy, ale tylko jedna osoba zna prawdę. I jest nim morderca.
Momentami historia wydawała mi się mało wiarygodna, muszę przyznać, że pomimo to czytałam ją z przyjemnością. Każda kolejna strona powodowała u mnie coraz większe napięcie i zwiększała niepewność odnośnie tego co się wydarzy za chwilę.
Natasha Preston dobrze przemyślała sobie fabułę i poszczególne etapy rozwiązywania zagadki, dzięki czemu powieś okazała się bardzo spójna. Bohaterowie są całkiem dobrze wykreowani, chociaż autorka mogła poświęcić więcej czasu na przedstawienie charakterów i osobowości poszczególnych postaci.
Pisarka posługuje się prostym i lekkim językiem, dzięki czemu czyta się w błyskawicznym tempie i z ogromną przyjemnością.
Zakończenie to chyba najlepszy element całej książki. Jak już wspominałam autorka bardzo zaplanowanie prowadzi fabułę książki i nie sposób domyślić się kto i dlaczego. Jednak końcówka zupełnie mnie zaskoczyła, przez co historia zyskała w moich oczach.
Przy "Uwikłanej" można spędzić miło parę chwil, ale nie jest to powieść, do której wróciłabym ponownie. Raczej nie utkwi mi w pamięci na długo, jednak polecam ją jako lekką niezobowiązującą lekturę na wieczór. Bardziej dla nastoletnich czytelników.

I picked up this book in hopes of it being a nice little drama/thriller type story that would shock me.
It did the absolute opposite.

Right off the bat we meet Ivy and Iris as they're returning home from their mom's funeral.

Ivy is already in a way annoyed with the fact that she now has to live with her twin sister whom she hasn't shared a house with for nearly 6 years, and instead of trying to bond with her sister or comfort her, she runs off to her boyfriend's house and complains about it.

The plot took way too long to progress for me. It's nearly a 400 page book, and things don't get heated or exciting really until the very end.

Most of the book is nonsense filler material that just followed Ivy and her day to day life of going to school, swimming, being with her boyfriend etc.

However, slowly she is being made an outcase to everyone she knows. Her best friends are now following Iris around everywhere she goes and completely ignores Ivy, a bunch of highschool drama ensues.

A rift starts between Ty and Ivy after a photograph is leaked of her and another guy kissing at a party where they were drunk, (which in this story took place when Ivy was roughly 15?). I just couldn't relate or connect with any of these characters because the circumstances just became too bizarre to me.

From the get go there are dozens of red flags around Iris and her mental state, yet no one notices anything. Literally. Instead they all just fall under a "spell" and do things to her every whim without question.
There are plenty of times in the book where you see Ivy saying that everything literally went south the second Iris showed up, and NO ONE can wrap their head around it. Not even her dad, who solely raised Ivy for those 6 years and didn't really see Iris all that much. 
Having literally an entire cast of characters instantly become blind like that makes me so frustrated.

And when we finally get to our "twist", it's all just too predictable and yet again, insane.
Ivy gets in touch with an old friend of Iris's from her old school, and coincidentally, the exact same thing happened with her whenever she was friends with Iris.
Then shortly after Kat, Iris's friend, tells Ivy everything that happened, she just mysteriously ended up dead.

When finally accused of causing these deaths, Iris just follows along with it and admits it without care. Her and her sister end up getting into a fight in their house, after she admitted to the murder of Kat and her and Ivy's mother, which their father breaks up.

This is another thing I couldn't quite wrap my head around. Their dad basically works from home, and the girls had this huge falling out IN the house, where Iris said out loud all the things she's done. But the dad didn't hear anything until they were in a physical fight? And somehow still sided with Iris and not Ivy even though she was pleading for someone, anyone to believe her.

In the end, I think this plot could have had so much potential in being an amazing story. But it was too lackluster and anti-climactic for me. We just get a bunch of nonsense scenes that are unnecessary, and we have these characters that we end up not really caring about before we even hit the middle of the book.

For a couple of 16 year old girls, it's really hard to picture this even happening as the story goes on. They're just way too young for the amount of stuff that was going on, and it just really makes you question the parent's side more, than these kids.

I really wanted to like this author and like this book, but for the life of me, I could not take it... It is a huge disappointment to me.

I read You Will Be Mine by Natasha Preston to get Suzanne Collins' card. The book has a young woman as the protagonist.

I am using this novel for Halloween Bingo, the Country House Mystery square.

This was poorly written. It reads a lot like a fanfiction, to be honest. The main character, Summer, does some pretty dumb things and I found myself rolling my eyes a lot at her. It did keep my interest and I enjoyed the fact that we got a look into the creepy kidnapper. But other than that its not one I would recommend.