The Tension of Opposites - Kristina McBride

Confession time. I read The Tension of Opposites over 2 weeks ago and I had written out my review on paper while I was killing time at work (shh) and I completely forgot that putting something on paper doesn't mean that it will magically appear on my blog. My bad. So although later than I planned, here we go..

Tessa has distanced herself from everybody after her best friend Noelle was kidnapped two years earlier. Then the unimaginable happens and Cooper, Noelle's brother, tells Tessa that Noelle is safe and she's coming home. Tessa can't wait to have her best friend back but Noelle's family forbids Tessa to see her. Cooper then tells Tessa that Noelle, now Elle, is different and their family doesn't want to upset her. In the meantime, Tessa meets the new photography student, Max, and he has taken an interest in her. At first, she tries to fight it because Elle needs her but she finds her thoughts drifting to Max. Will Tessa and Elle be best friends again like they used to be? Can Tessa stop focusing so much on Elle or will she risk losing Max?

A few weeks ago I mentioned all the issues I had finding this book. Was it worth it? Yes and no.

I liked that this book was about the aftermath of something so horrible such as a kidnapping. Most of time, something like this gets pushed aside and forgotten with the details glossed over and you never really know what goes on once the person comes home. The Tension of Opposites gives you a little insight to why the victim might do or feel the things they do. I liked that it had a happy ending with Noelle coming home alive but I also liked getting to see a bit of her inner conflict. How could someone not change after having something so terrible happen to them?

This leads me to what I didn't like. Tessa just seemed so bent on getting her best friend back and getting back what ;life was like before the kidnapping that it felt like she wasn't very concerned with what Elle was dealing with mentally and emotionally.

I do wish that this book would have been from Elle's perspective because I think that would have made it so much better. Elle just seemed to have more of a presence of character than Tessa did and I found myself getting annoyed with Tessa.

I do recommend reading it at least once though, if not for any other reason than this: Kristina seems like such a sweetheart that I really struggled with wanting to like this book more than not. I will be reading more stuff from her in the future for the simple fact that, even though I've just shared a few tweets with her, I like her as a person.

Also, if you read this book you can join in on Jessica's first ever blog book discussion on Monday, June 28th and Tuesday, June 29th where participants can talk about The Tension of Opposites with the possibility of Kristina herself showing up for the discussion.

This was book #5 in the 2010 Debut Author's Challenge