Split by Swati Avashti

Gut Instinct Rating - 3

Story Line - 4

Writing Style - 5

Characters - 4

Excitement Factor -2

Believability for type and topics - 4

Similarity to other books - 3

Cover art - 3

Title Relevance - 1

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.03. I think it was more deserving of a 3.22.

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Published in 2010.

Pages: 280.

Number of books by author: 3.

Genre: YA Fiction.

When Jace's abusive dad kicks him out, his mother sends him to his brother... who he hasn't seen or talked to in 5 years. Jace and Christian discover they have to learn how to be siblings again. How to be family.

I probably would not recommend this book because it was just so dreadfully boring. Maybe it's because I'm battling fatigue, but the book was literally putting me to sleep. Everything about this book felt average. This appears to have been her first book, so I'm not sure if her other book is better, but I don't know that I'd risk reading another one any time soon.

The characters were done well; needed some small adjustments. Everything was so extreme and stereotypical. The father was the stereotypical repeat abuser, choosing one person to abuse initially, then escalating over time. The mother was the stereotypical mother with Stockholm syndrome. The boys were the two ends of the extreme - anger problems and repeating violence, and trying to over-correct with calm. The girlfriends were all identical (even Jace mentioned this). Intelligent, power hungry, replicating what they didn't get in their own mother. I mean, every character was a statistic relating to domestic violence. And there was no closure with Lauren or Dakota... which I thought to be really strange.

Pretty realistic give or take a few parts. I won't ruin anything from the book, but I failed to see the drastic change in Christian's position on his family being so willing over the course of 3 months. I mean, anything is possible, but I don't see it being as realistic as it was painted.

Writing was smooth with no interruptions to the story line. The writing itself was fine. It was generic with nothing really pushing the story line, nor nothing holding it back. I wouldn't feel right giving it anything less than a five since there's really no complaints.

Story line was boring. If this book had been any longer than 300 pages, I might not have finished it. Although, it was an incredibly fast read despite how tired I already was. I thought we were going to have this huge moment towards the end, but it ended up being a false alarm. I don't know that anything other than general curiosity got me to the end.

The story was well thought out with few flaws. The story itself was similar to the writing. I don't have many complaints. I think the only thing that really bothered me is it felt like we were going no where for about half of the book. And then we were going somewhere, it led to nowhere again. The overall plot, however, should've been something that was exciting, that was powerful. Maybe I read too many DV books (although, I don't think I actually do) and so I'm burnt-out? The story was written poorly. But the story itself could've been great.

The title might've been for another book... and I'm still trying to figure out how "Split" has anything to do with this story. A split lip in the beginning? A split up family? I'm not sure. It made no sense to me whatsoever.

Artwork was fine; matched the story okay. I thought the story was fine... although, I feel like the image of a boy with long hair contradicts the idea that the boy had short blond hair? I could be wrong, of course, and this may be just the way I pictured Jace, but I don't know if a person was the main character. I think domestic violence was the main character, and Jace (and Christian) were secondary characters, so I would've liked a bit more innovation here... but what are you going to do.