***Blog Tour Partial Review*** Invisible by Cecily Anne Paterson

Jazmine Crawford doesn’t make decisions. She doesn’t make choices. She doesn’t make friends. Jazmine Crawford only wants one thing: to be invisible. 

For Jazmine, it’s a lot easier to take out her hearing aid and drift along in life pretending that nothing’s wrong than it is to admit that she’s heartbroken about her dad dying. She’s been drifting and ignoring her over-worried mum for four years now. But something’s got to give – and soon.

When bad girl Shalini and her mates adopt Jazmine, she follows along without thinking but quickly finds herself part of their plan to vandalise the drama classroom. Jazmine manages to save the key prop, a jewelled headdress, before drama teacher Miss Fraser walks in to find a room full of destruction. Later, sitting in disgrace in the principal’s office, Jazmine is offered a choice: become a ‘runner’ for Miss Fraser in the upcoming production of The Secret Garden or face a three week suspension and a permanent mark on her record. 

It’s Miss Fraser who clinches the decision. “I believe in you Jazmine,” she says. “I know you can do this.” And Jazmine, terrified, disbelieving and elated all at the same time, joins the play and leaves her invisible life behind. 

For a while it’s all good. Writing in the new journal that Miss Fraser gives her connects her to the memories she has of her father. Drama star and chocolate lover Liam is friendly and Jazmine realises that making friends, talking to her mother and feeling her emotions isn’t as scary as she thought. In the play, Jazmine becomes the prompter and a stand in and discovers to her amazement that she loves the stage and has a natural talent for acting. In a final happy twist of fate, acting diva Angela breaks both her ankles and with only a week before the curtain goes up, Miss Fraser asks Jazmine to take on the main role of Mary.

But it’s not quite as good as it seems. Jazmine is still fearful and doesn’t want to give too much away. She can’t quite believe that Liam likes her, and is worried that if people knew what she was really like, they wouldn’t want to be her friend. 

But then Shalini returns from her suspension. In her mind, she has been betrayed. She’s out for payback, and she expects that Jazmine is going to do what she’s told, or else she just might expose her greatest secret...

Partial Review

Now I've been ill for the past few weeks so my posts have pretty much stopped but with this book being part of a blog tour I've been trying my hardest to read it. However I'm only on page 44 of my PDF copy and I'm due to post so I'm going to try my best to review what I have managed to read. I'm also really sorry that even this post is a bit late. I really am ill. 

Okay so something I do like is the flow of the story. There's a nice rhythm to it and if I was able to concentrate I have a feeling this is the sort of story I'd devour. It's easy to read Jazmine's POV and I personally think she's quite relateable. I mean we all try to shut off our pain and fail. The fact that I can comment on the flow while I have 0% concentration says a lot about the book in itself. 

Another thing that I'm really enjoying is that some of the chapters are just Jazmine's diary entries. Books in diary format are something I appreciate a lot. I guess it's because I've always wanted to keep a diary but never managed to consistently write down how I feel. This book has inspired me to give it another go. Maybe I should do that. 

Jazmine is one of the most interesting main characters I've come across in a while. All that she's been through would leave their scars on any person but Jazmine has to cope with it while having difficulty hearing. While she should technically be difficult to relate to since she's locked away her feelings and is just rediscovering them I can completely get her point. I'm going through something similar myself right now and feeling less alone is always good. 

The book talks a lot of The Secret Garden now I have a confession, The Secret Garden is one of my all time favourite books. I first read it when I was a kid, my mum always encouraged my love of reading and to this day children's classics are books I really enjoy and this book is reminding me of that so much, that even in my unable to concentrate state, I want to dig it out. I may have to settle for the film though. 

I'm really enjoying the story and I thought I wasn't taking it in properly but it seems to have stuck in my head. Even though I'm not finished I definitely think that you should all go pick up this book. It won't cost you a penny because it's free so it's not like you'll lose anything if it's not for you. So yes, join me and read this beautiful story. 

Get the book at:

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-ebook/dp/B00BEQZBYE/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1369131991&sr=8-1&keywords=cecily+anne+paterson

http://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Cecily-Anne-Paterson/dp/1291259007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369131991&sr=8-1&keywords=cecily+anne+paterson

http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=Cecily+Paterson&x=4&y=10&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=

also at itunes

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/276143

Cecily Anne Paterson is what they call a TCK, or a third culture kid, which basically means she grew up overseas and has some weird issues. Now she’s a mostly normal Australian living in a small town in New South Wales, although her four children don’t wouldn’t necessarily agree with the mostly normal bit. She’s been an editor, a communications officer, an ESL teacher and now a writer. Her ambition is to write two young adult books a year for the next ten years.

Social links and websites:

http://cecilyannepaterson.weebly.com/

http://cecilypaterson.squarespace.com/ (more for grownups)

https://www.facebook.com/CecilyAnnePaterson