Nobody But Us Blog Tour

Nobody But Us 
Author: Kristin Halbrook
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: Jan 29, 2013

 Synopsis:

Bonnie and Clyde meets IF I STAY in this addictively heart-wrenching story of two desperate teenagers on the run from their pasts.
They’re young. They’re in love. They’re on the run.
Zoe wants to save Will as much as Will wants to save Zoe. When Will turns eighteen, they decide to run away together. But they never expected their escape to be so fraught with danger....
When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can’t run fast enough.
Nobody But Us, told in alternating perspectives from Will and Zoe, is an unflinching novel, in turns heartbreaking and hopeful, about survival, choices, and love...and how having love doesn’t always mean that you get a happy ending. Described as “beautiful, heartbreaking, and exhilarating” by Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF, Nobody But Us will prove irresistible to fans of Nina Lacour, Jenny Han, and Sara Zarr.

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Playlist:
Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift & The Civil Wars
Running Up That Hill by Placebo
Time is Running Out by Muse
If I Die Young by The Band Perry
Time After Time by Quietdrive
'03 Bonnie & Clyde by Beyonce & Jay-Z
Love Story by Taylor Swift

*Click on the titles of the songs to see the video on Youtube

I usually don't listen to Taylor Swift very much but the book cover totally reminds me of a Taylor Swift style album cover so while reading this book I ended up listening to her music and found a couple of the songs really related to the story!

I would explain why I picked each of the songs and the scene they corresponded to but I don't want to give too much away, just suffice to say that when listened to as a whole they give a good gauge of how the story made me feel.

Review:
Nobody But Us is a contemporary that tackles some very tough issues. When I first began the novel, based on the cover, I expected a light hearted romance what I got was something completely different. The two main characters Zoe and Will have been through entirely too much in their lives. Zoe’s mother died in a tragic accident and her drunken father beats her, the entire town knows about this but does nothing to help her. Will was abandoned as a child and has been in and out of foster and group homes his entire life, upon turning 18 he was going to be kicked out of the group home, with this in mind Will and Zoe decide to leave their small North Dakota town and head to Las Vegas. Nobody But Us follows this road trip.

The novel alternates perspectives between Zoe and Will and it took me a little while to get used to Will’s voice. As I have said many times I am not a fan of dialects in writing so Will’s uneducated dialect initially bothered me but as I got used to it I came to really like Will. I felt like I understood his actions at the end of the novel a lot better because I got to see his perspective so clearly.

My one qualm about this book is not really a qualm at all but more of a personal problem. Because I am a law student I spend all day reading law books and with my course load this term I spend a lot of time reading criminal law cases. When I was reading Nobody But Us I couldn’t separate the fiction from my legal reading. Every time Zoe and Will made a decision all I could think of was what crime I would charge them with if I was the prosecutor in their case. It made my reading go somewhat like this “Crossing state lines with a minor, charge kidnapping. Stole money, charge with theft I. Hit a guy without a weapon, charge with simple assault.” From there it got even more interesting when I put myself in defense counsel’s shoes and thought about how I would defend these two. I think if I had been able to separate the fiction from the law I would have really loved this book.

Overall, Nobody But Us was a good and very emotional read. It tackled some tough issues and the affect they had on Zoe and Will’s lives. I feel like while the ending had me in tears it was my favorite part of the novel because it was the only realistic way I could see the story ending. I recommend this book to anyone looking for an emotional, contemporary read. 

Author Bio:
Kristin Halbrook is a Seattleite who loves good coffee, good food, good music, good sports, good causes, and good reads. She’s both intense and a goofball, introverted and gregarious. Nobody But Us is her debut novel.

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Nobody But Us Blog Tour