Unboxed is a great page turner of a novel from UK YA writer Non Pratt (Trouble) . Imagine that, aged 13, you and your closest friends got together and created a secret box – full of precious things and secrets. Then imagine five years later you meet up to open the box, but one person is no longer there…
Five years feels like a lifetime… a life time since these five were close friends, because now they’re not.
What happened?
What secrets have been held back?
Short chapters mean that Pratt’s narrative has a great pace. The initial focus is on Alix as she deals with her nerves surrounding the impending meeting with the ‘bunch of strangers I used to call friends’. She feels she has the biggest secret – have they guessed that she’s kept it from them? How will they react?
As the friends work their way through the envelopes, Pratt increases the tension both for the reader and the friends as they realise what they’ve missed over the five years they have been apart. Pratt has created varied and interesting characters for the reader to get to know… each with their own quirks.
Unboxed has the added advantage of being printed on lovely heavy paper, the pale yellow hue supports a greater range of readers – good move Barrington Stoke!
Unboxed by Non Pratt is great novel to get stuck in to.
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