Slide

Slide - Jill Hathaway

I initially wanted to read Slide because I was intrigued by the premise. I mean, the ‘gift/curse’ of being able to see through the eyes of others sounds pretty neat, right? Well, until you realise you’re seeing through the eyes of a killer, anyhoo.

I liked Sylvia a lot as MC. It took a little while to be comfortable with her voice but once I reached around page 30, I was pretty much on a home run and had difficulty putting the book down. I enjoyed the first person present tense. Occasionally, present tense can feel as though it doesn’t quite ‘fit’ right, but that wasn’t the case for Slide.

And then there were the supporting cast. Now, I blame Ms Hathaway wholeheartedly for this, but due to the fact that everyone was a suspect in my mind, I had my eye on pretty much everyone from the moment the killer entered the scene (or Sylvia entered the killer, if one wants to be pedantic). So, whilst Zane was extremely cute and had potential to woo, I kept studying him through narrowed eyes. And then we had Rollins. I adored Rollins, and I spent the entire novel hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be him. Of course, I initially hoped it would be someone like Amber—despite that being a ridiculously easy and obvious choice—but that notion soon got squashed. And then I had my eye on the ‘down-with-the-kids’ teacher, despite wondering if he’d be too easy. So, yeah, my mind pretty much kept changing with each chapter.

So let’s move on to the whole ‘sliding’ business. As I said in the opening, I liked this idea a lot. And I thought it was primarily handled well, even though the easiest route for it was quite possibly taken, because it meant the author got away with not having to describe how an actual slide ‘felt’—because the mc didn’t seem to ‘feel’ anything. But I wonder if we could have been allowed to understand a little deeper how the mc ‘felt’ during the time of being inside someone else. Yes, I know she felt what they did and saw what they did. But how much of their emotions affected her could have been stronger, as well as being able to understand how much of herself was still within her ‘corporeal’ form or if she was nothing more than a disembodied presence simply along for the ride. Whilst we did get to understand a little better that Vee obviously did have the ability to feel emotion and act independently, I would have liked to understand at least how this physically felt to her a little sooner—because it seemed as though it should have been there even before she figured out how much she could do.

And onto the ending and the big reveal. Whilst I loved the story, and the character, and found her extremely well developed, I’m not sure I was entirely happy with who the murderer turned out to be. I also felt slightly disappointed by what should have been the grand finale, because there was no big showdown, no answers tossed out by the guilty party (Vee had to get everything confirmed elsewhere), and I think killing off the two characters who died at the end wrapped it up more tightly than it needed to be. In short: the ending felt rushed and slightly underdeveloped.

So will I read on? Well, as I really liked Vee and am totally interested to see where a certain relationship goes, I’d have to say yes. :)