Rebel Town Reviews [OPEN]

Stolen Best Friend (Chapters 6 - 10) - @High_On_Sarcasm

Stolen Best Friend (Chapters 6 - 10) by High_On_Sarcasm

Reviewed by -bethwrites-

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Overview

The author requested that I start reviewing from the middle of the book, so I had to go back and do a quick read through of the first couple chapters to have some background info. The gist is that a girl named Aliyah lost her memory from an accident and is trying to piece her life back together in the years after. Starting from the point the author specified, Aliyah begins to have flashbacks of her life before the accident, which are brief and only allow for her to pick up a name, "Minahil." She meets a new girl named Saman who moved in from Pakistan, which was where Aliyah lived before Amsterdam, and she finds out that Saman is best friends with a girl named Minahil. This piece of information, along with her newfound love for her friend Asher, advances the plot around these particular five chapters. The writing is straight to the point and based mostly on dialogue and sarcastic wit, and jumps from different POV styles at least three times in the book.

Plot (so far):

CHAPTER SIX

The chapter opens up with Aliyah having a dream where she and this girl called Minahil are teasing each other about guys they like. Eventually in the dream, Minahil says that she would miss Aliyah when Aliyah goes to Amsterdam, and at this point she wakes up from her dream. She doesn't think much of it as she has to go pick up Asher and bring him to his interview at Aliyah's workplace, which Asher nails even though she almost screwed it up for him by bringing up his past as a thief. Later on, though, Aliyah brings it up to her friend, Rebecca, which then leads Rebecca to suggest that Aliyah is starting to get some of her memory back.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In this chapter, Aliyah can't get the name "Minahil Sikander," which she remembered from the dream, and Rebecca's words, "maybe you're getting your memory back," out of her head. She wakes up to find a guy from her school named Justin on her doorstep, who she mistakes for a wall at first because she opened the front door with her eyes closed. After Justin blatantly flirting with her for a bit and she plays hard to get in response, she finally agrees to go on a date with him. Once at school, Rebecca informs her that there's a new girl from Pakistan and suggests that Aliyah go talk to her, on the off chance that this new girl might know who is Aliyah from her past life in Pakistan. Aliyah agrees, reluctantly, and en route to class gets accosted by a girl who tells her to back off because Justin is hers, which might have something to do with the fact that Justin happens to be famous in the school and all the girls love him. In return, Aliyah claps back at the girl and calls off the date with Justin. She also meets the new girl for the first time by helping the girl open her locker.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The girl introduces herself as Saman, and the three hit it off as they head to class together. In a passing remark, Saman mentions the name Minahil and Aliyah can't get it out of her head for the rest of the day. On getting home, she gets a call from Asher, telling her that he got the job, relieving her of any consequences that may have resulted from letting it slip that Asher was a thief. She reads group chats from Rebecca and Saman planning a GNO, or girl's night out, and heads out for her shift at the cafe.

CHAPTER NINE

After some bonding time over checking out Aliyah's huge house and some personal questions such as whether Saman was Team Jacob or Team Edward from Twilight, Rebecca asks Saman to tell the truth about herself. Saman tells them that she grew up in Pakistan with her best friend Minahil before moving here. When Saman asks where in Pakistan did Aliyah grow up in, Aliyah reveals that she lost her memory because of an accident two years previously. They move on to talk about Asher, and Rebecca admits to Aliyah that Asher was her childhood bully, which was why she didn't take too kindly to Asher initially. Rebecca then goes on to say that she doesn't harbor any bad feelings toward Asher because she realized that both Asher and Aliyah love each other undyingly. Aliyah spends the next two pages denying it, and then realizing that she does, in fact, have a crush on Asher, which leads her to accept his invitation to go out with him when he calls her the next morning.

CHAPTER TEN

The POV suddenly jumps to Asher's in this chapter, which I found kind of odd since up until this point everything was in Aliyah's first person POV. In this monologue style chapter, Asher reveals that he has been in love with Aliyah ever since she whined over a Harry Potter book, and he reflects back on everything about Aliyah that makes his love intensify for her by a thousand factor. The chapter then zooms into the present, where they are on a date at the fair. He wins her a stuffed wolf, and they get on the Ferris wheel, and the entire time he can't stop thinking about how gorgeous she is and how much he loves her. There wasn't much plot advancement in this chapter, probably because the gist of this was just to show first hand what his feelings were for her.

Characters:

From what I can tell from the chapters I read in the middle of the book, the characters develop typically. Aliyah appears to be a bitter and angry individual, judging from the way she sasses about every person who talks to her. It could be because of her memory loss and her being unable to find answers, but it just seems like that's her personality. Her character doesn't really have any major advances or turnabouts in the chapters I read and is consistently sassy and borderline cranky. Her feelings for Asher seemed kind of slow developed and she didn't seem to have much past friendly feelings and maybe a crush on him because he's hot, but other than that she didn't seem to be falling head over heels for him. Which was why I was completely blindsided by the tenth chapter, in which Asher declares his undying love for her and reveals that he knew Aliyah before her accident, which was why when she met him again she didn't remember him. Asher's character is also similarly sarcastic, but the resemblance ends there because Aliyah likes to play hard to get, whereas he is a complete flirt. Their dialogue is entertaining to read, that I can give you. The fact that a new character is introduced who also just happens to know the girl that Aliyah is having dreams is kind of odd, not to mention that she gets introduced halfway through the book, but the author pulls it off fairly well.

Writing Style:

This piece was almost entirely written from Aliyah's thoughts about Asher and her identity crisis. It's more written from her candid POV rather than flowy descriptions about her surroundings or what she's doing at the moment. Instead, you form a conclusion about her relationship with Asher based mostly on how she talks to him, rather than how she describes him. The POV changes threw me off a bit, because here you're getting a nice story about how Aliyah is slowly falling in love with this guy she met who initially tried to steal her purse but is genuinely nice and all, and then all of a sudden it switches to Asher's POV, where on his side of the story he's been madly in love with her this entire time. It is an interesting switch up, though.

Summary:

Stolen Best Friend is a story revolving around a girl trying to put her life back together after an accident that claims her memory, which is told through an honest and down to earth POV. There are some elements to the story that might kind of jump out at the reader, but it's nothing too major that would end up taking the reader's attention away from the action. Plotwise, the story mixes elements of amnesia and a classic friend-love story in a way that isn't too overdone, or cheesy, and keeps the reader guessing as to what's going to happen next.