First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy

God, this book was such a disappointment. I have so many books by Alexandra Sirowy on my to-read list and now I'm finding it hard to muster up enthusiasm for any of them. I just could not get into the writing style of this book and it got to the point where I almost didn't finish reading it, which is a Huge Deal for me. But the narrative style is off-putting, rambly and faux-poetic in  a way which creates a kind of pretentious, dreamy atmosphere. In short, it is the exact kind of style I can't stand. And this is mostly due to personal taste but to be honest, even excluding that I don't think this book has a lot to offer.

Plotwise, I found it very difficult to follow what was going on. This was mostly due to the writing style as I mentioned above but it was also because no one was really acting like a real person or making sense within their motivations. The basic plot is that these four outcasts decide to form a psuedo-cult to get the town to pay attention to the murder of a girl which happened years ago. Everyone at school, particularly the popular kids who have been bullying them for years, becomes desperate to join this cult and will do crazy things to get into it. This already requires too much suspension of disbelief on my part. There is no natural transition between the popular kids hating them to idolising their weird club. It happens mostly because of a semi-naked bonfire dance and what??? That is not the kind of thing that will get the popular people clamoring to take part in something. If anything, it should ostracise them even more as weirdos.

Characterisation was another big problem. Are we meant to hate the bully characters? Conner is despicable but when he starts to want to join the club, I get the impression that the narration wants us to think he's maybe not so bad? Viv is just the worst and has nothing relatable or sympathetic about her. Graham made me so uncomfortable in his attraction and attitude towards Izzie and gave off serious 'nice guy entitlement' vibes. I actually did like Harry right up until an incredibly nonsensical and stupid decision he makes near the end. Finally, Izzie would have been okay if she'd been written more clearly. I know ambiguity is meant to be a part of it but I couldn't really understand how she felt about Graham or Conner or several other important things. That's not ambiguity, that's bad writing. I should understand the main character's motivations, even if they're not clarified until the end. Instead they just don't get clarified at all.

Overall, I just don't get what people like about this book. I guess if you're a fan of the overly-descriptive and poetic writing style, you might get something out of this. It had some potentially good plot elements and the core idea could have worked with some tweaking. Sadly this was not a book for me.

Overall Rating:

.5