Review: What We Buried by Kate A. Boorman

It will be impossible to write down my thoughts about this book. I shall try my best. I really wanted to love this book, as the cover is gorgeous and it seemed like such a thrilling mystery read. But ha. Liking this book was impossible. As I ended up pretty much hating it from the very beginning. Then all the way until the ending. Sigh.

I really wanted more from this book. Since, honestly, the mystery part was almost perfect. I enjoyed it so very much. But the rest of this book sucked. Completely. And that is why this is a two star for me. Mystery was so good, but it was only a small part. This book focused more on the two main characters. They were so horrible.

As in, truly the worst characters I have ever read about. I will not be able to describe it well enough. So I shall begin by saying that I did not like the writing one bit. It felt messy and wrong for me. It was impossible to feel connected to these characters at all. Which was pretty sad, as I truly did want to love this. Thankfully, despite the bad writing, it was an easy to read book. And it did not take up too much of my time. Though it ruined my mind a bit. Because the mystery truly was exciting. I wanted to know what had happened and all that what would happen. But oh. I could not care less about these characters. The siblings, Liv and Jory. Hated them so. Which is a strong word, but my god, how they deserved it. Ugh. I didn't care for them even a little bit. They were both awful.

I wish I could say that the characters were interesting. That they had exciting lives and great stories to tell. But they really hadn't. At least, I didn't find it interesting at all. Because of how stupid they both were. How they both acted like complete idiots. How they didn't seem like they could think for themselves. How they acted around each other; rude and silly. I wanted to love them both. But I ended up loving neither of them. The book is from both point of views, which was a little too much for me, to be completely honest.

Considering this entire book is about the two of them on a road trip, all alone. I did not need both point of views for that. Especially considering they kept having the same flashbacks about their childhood. It grew boring fast. These two siblings were so close as children. But they grew apart quite fast, because of their parents. Liv was beautiful. Jory had a facial paralysis that made him less beautiful to some. Including their own parents. They treated him badly, and that hurt my heart a whole lot. Because nobody deserves that.

Because, even though I could not stand Jory, because of his personality, I could not help but care about him because of his paralysis. It hurt my heart to read about people being mean to Jory, as he really did not deserve it one bit. This book focus a little on his paralysis, and I liked that. But, well, I also felt like it could have been written so much better. If the character had been written better. Sigh. But he was simply not a likeable boy at all. I felt for him, but I still hated him. Oops. I did not like his point of view much at all.

Then there was Liv. Their mom made her into a pageant queen as a child. Made her perform for years, winning often. This book is about Liv being sixteen years old, and deciding that her parents ruined her childhood, and so she is now suing them. Like others like her had done to their parents, and all had won. I wish I could say her story was interesting. But it was not. She was so spoiled. She claimed to be better, but she was not. She had these rage blackouts, that seemed so silly, to be honest. Not done well enough.

There was so much about this book that I did not like. I would never be able to write it all down. And so I will not say much more about it. Only that I completely hated the two main characters. This takes place in about a couple of days, but that was enough time for me to hate them both. Sigh. I wish I had loved them. But they were too difficult and not very nice at all. Sure, their sibling relationship do end up getting better than ever, but I did not care for it at all, sadly. It wasn't cute, it wasn't fun. Just silly. I wanted more from it.

But then there was the mystery. And I actually really liked that. It could have been done much better, of course, but still. It was almost done perfectly. I liked not knowing what would happen next. Liv and Jory are going on a road trip. To find their parents, whom disappeared the day of the court date. They both have reasons to find them, thinking they know where they are, what happened to them. They take their car and drive for hours looking for their missing parents. But nothing goes as they planned it. Not at all.

And I liked that a bunch. It was such a twisty mystery. Time was weird, memories were weird. Yet it was interesting and exciting too. Well, except for the stupid characters it was happening to, sigh. But yeah. I liked the mystery a lot. Trying to figure out where their parents went. Trying to understand why it feels like so many things they do have already happened before. Then the twist at the ending. What. I am so not sure what to feel about it. It was pretty excellent, though. And I liked the ending a lot. It was pretty great.

But yes. I'm still giving two stars to What We Buried. The mystery was so good, and the ending with it was pretty great too. But it was also such an open ending, and it needed way more closure. This book also had zero romance. Which hurt my heart. But yes. Two stars, because I could not stand these two characters. I did not like the writing. At all. And so many things bothered me about it. Still. The mystery was almost perfect. I would recommend this for the mystery, but only for that. The rest was not enough.

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