Name: Eleanor
ISBN: 9781101903513

Jason Gurley

Years after an accident claims her twin's life and triggers her father's abandonment and mother's ascent into alcoholism, Eleanor begins to experience supernatural dissociations that reveal her parents' unhappy pasts and her role in helping them heal.

Eleanor

Eleanor and Esmerelda are identical twins with a secret language all their own, inseparable until a terrible accident claims Esme's life. Eleanor's family is left in tatters: her mother retreats inward, seeking comfort in bottles; her father reluctantly abandons ship. Eleanor is forced to grow up more quickly than a child should, and becomes the target of her mother's growing rage. Years pass, and Eleanor's painful reality begins to unravel in strange ways. The first time it happens, she walks through a school doorway, and finds herself in a cornfield, beneath wide blue skies. When she stumbles back into her own world, time has flown by without her. Again and again, against her will, she falls out of her world and into other, stranger ones, leaving behind empty rooms and worried loved ones. One fateful day, Eleanor leaps from a cliff and is torn from her world altogether. She meets a mysterious stranger, Mea, who reveals to Eleanor the weight of her family's loss. To save her broken parents, and rescue herself, Eleanor must learn how deep the well of her mother's grief and her father's heartbreak truly goes. Esmerelda's death was not the only tragic loss in her family's fragmented history, and unless Eleanor can master her strange new abilities, it may not be the last.

Jackie

Before I start my review, I'd like to thank bloggingforbooks for sending me a copy of this book. You guys should definitely check them out if you like being sent books to review!

So when I first read the description on their website, I thought that it would be a rather interesting and intriguing story, I hadn't exactly factored in how heavy some of the content would be - something that made it rather hard for me to actually enjoy this book, hence the three star rating I will be giving this one. Jason Gurley's writing was phenomenal but their was something off in terms of it actually clicking with me. It may have been the multiple point of views and the vagueness in some of the descriptions (for example with the rift) and I found that I was having a rough time actually visualizing the story which is something that I do ninety-nine percent of the time I read a book. 

Towards the end of the book, I was more drawn in and I found myself thinking that if this were ever made into a film adaptation, I would enjoy it so much more. The characters were well developed and I really wish we were able to see Jack more in the book, I found myself getting very excited when he was with Eleanor and he was such a big help with the story. I'd honestly love to see what could happen in the alternate time the book had ended with if Jason was ever inclined to write about that! 

It could just be that the timing was off but this book just didn't click with me and I found myself setting the book down for days at a time after only reading about twenty pages. If you're okay with reading about depressing matters and are okay with some confusion on what is going on in a book, I'd definitely recommend this one! I've seen people label it as young adult but I'm not actually one hundred percent certain on what this book is generalized as. 

Thank you again, bloggingforbooks, for sending this one to me to read. I just wish I could rate this with more stars, the cover was simplistic but beautiful and the description was awesome, it was just most of everything between that didn't click for me.

Renee Blankenship

** spoiler alert **
           This was a very strange and twisting story. It definitely kept me intrigued throughout, especially the relationship between the two sisters and how they were still so bound together even after the one died. Worth reading!