You Against me by Jenny Downham

Grade: 4.5 Butterflies
Name: You Against Me
Author: Jenny Downham
Released: December 2nd 2010
Publisher: David Fickling
Page Amount: Hardcover, 413 pages
   
Goodreads summary

If someone hurts your sister and you're any kind of man, you seek revenge, right? If your brother's been accused of a terrible crime and you're the main witness, then you banish all doubt and defend him. Isn't that what families do? When Mikey's sister claims a boy assaulted her at a party, his world of work and girls begins to fall apart. When Ellie's brother is charged with the crime, but says he didn't do it, her world of revision, exams and fitting in at a new school begins to unravel. When Mikey and Ellie meet, two worlds collide. Brave and unflinching, this is a novel of extraordinary skillfulness and almost unbearable tension. It's a book about loyalty and the choices that come with it. But above all it's a book about love - for one's family and for another.

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My thoughts

    This book is about a very tricky subject. This book is about the aftermath of a fifteen year old girl getting raped. The book starts after the girl contacts the police and tells them what happened. So, if you don't like reading books with that in it then maybe don't read this book. However, the author did a really good job writing this book, because I read nothing that seemed offensive. At least, that was my impression, I don't know how you would take it, but that was my impression.

    I was blown away with this book, it was so good. This is the kind of book that captivates you from the first page and leaves you thinking about it well after you finished it.

    The POV (point of view) switches between Mikey, the brother of the girl, and Ellie, the sister of the brother who is being accused of doing it. This book is about Ellie deciding what is more important, family or doing what is right. For Mikey it is about him just coping with what happened and him trying to figure out how to help his sister.

    The plot in this book was so captivating that I never wanted to put it down. I stayed up way to late just so I can finish it. This book also took me on a roller-coaster of emotions, from sadness on one page to happiness on the next page, to anger and frustration on another page. The only bad thing about this book was it ended with a few loose ends and I don't like that when the book is a stand-alone.

    Mikey and Ellie where really great characters and I really loved the author's writing style, because I got in Ellie's and Mikey's head and understood the decisions they made. I didn't always agree with their decisions, but I understood them.

    One of my favorite things about this book was the relationship between Ellie and Mikey, because  it felt very realistic and just real. There are so many books where the main relationship felt forced. Like the author just wanted to have a relationship in the book, so the author just threw one in. It wasn't like that in this book, at all, their relationship felt real and very sweet. What probably made it so real was that they never said to each other or themselves, that they love each other. To many times in books I read where the two main characters say that they love each other, even though they knew each other for three weeks.

This book gets....

4.5 Butterflies

Beautiful, this is a great book. 

Recommended if you like Contemporary, really sweet romance, and a great plot.
However, if you don't like books that deal with the issue of rape, then don't read this book.





That is my review, I hope you liked it.