Things We Have in Common - Hardcover

Kavanagh, Tasha

3.38

3,387 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0778326853 ISBN 13: 9780778326854

Publisher: MIRA, 2017

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Read the novel The New York Times named “[a] perfectly orchestrated girl‐who‐cried‐wolf thriller.”

“Could be the next Gone Girl success story.”—Independent (UK)

Reader beware: You'll think you know what's happening, and you'll think you see what's coming next But you'll be very, very wrong.

Fifteen‐year‐old Yasmin Doner is a social misfit obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers at school. With her father dead and her mother in a new relationship, Yasmin yearns for a sense of belonging, finding comfort only in food and the fantasy of being close to Alice Taylor, a girl at school. Yasmin will do anything to become friends with pretty and popular Alice even if Alice, like everyone else, thinks she's a freak.

When Yasmin notices a sinister‐looking man watching Alice from the school fence, she sees a way of finally winning Alice's affection because how this stranger is staring is far more than just looking, it's wanting. Because this stranger, Yasmin believes, is going to take Alice. Yasmin decides to find out more about this man so that when he does take Alice, Yasmin will be the only one who knows his name and where he lives the only one who can save her.

But as Yasmin discovers more about him, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn't need Alice after all.

And then Alice vanishes.

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About the Author:

Tasha Kavanagh has an MA in Creative Writing and has worked as an editor on feature films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Twelve Monkeys and Seven Years in Tibet. Her first adult novel is Things We Have in Common and it was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction. She lives in Hertfordshire with her family and three cats.

Review:

"[A] perfectly orchestrated girl-who cried-wolf thriller.... Kavanagh's second-person narration ... reveals the very thin line that separates garden-variety teenage agita from dangerous delusion.... [T]he artfulness with which [Kavanagh] deceives and manipulates is so downright creepy that one periodically finds oneself in the discomfiting posture of cheering on the bullies and the mean girls."-The New York Times Book Review

"[W]ildly clever...spectacular...The conclusion underscore[s] the author's searing insight into teenage behavior and the desperation for connection."-Publishers Weekly

"An unreliable narrator in the most intriguing way.... A quick, thoroughly enjoyable read."-Booklist

"A tale of loneliness and teenage obsession which could be the next Gone Girl success story."-Independent (UK)

"A brilliantly twisted coming-of-age tale... The story chillingly, compulsively unravels."-Sunday Express

"A striking and highly enjoyable debut."-Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author

"Tasha Kavanagh's Yasmin is as complex and believable a narrator as you will find. Her honesty drives the novel to its unflinching, brilliant conclusion and is why Things We Have in Common is so disturbing...so impossible to set aside." -Travis Mulhauser, author of Sweetgirl

"With a dark and suspenseful plot that keeps the reader guessing until the final pages, Things We Have in Common is an assured debut narrated by an alarming and original voice." -The Irish Times

"Kavanagh does orchestrate some successful plot twists that are reminiscent of other psychological thrillers-classics by Ruth Rendell, for example, or more recent hits like Gone Girl."-Kirkus Reviews

"A pitch-black comedy thriller."-The Guardian

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