My Side of the Diamond follows Jazmin as she reiterates the story of how her best friend Becky died. She didn’t just die though, she vanished. Just like magic, as Becky jumped from St Pauls Cathedral but her body never hit the ground. The same thing happened years earlier to Skye and Lazarus, but nothing was ever solved.
I went into this book knowing nothing as my ARC copy didn’t have a synopsis and I accidentally sent the publishers note back to my mums house inside the other book I received. This is probably both a good and a bad thing. The good thing was that I was so intrigued about what this book was about. The bad thing is that I was totally not ready to be reading about aliens. This completely threw me and I feel like I need to reread to understand what was going on a bit more. It’s been a few weeks since I finished and I’m still not fully sure what was going on.
My Side of the Diamond is short but also quite mysterious. I finished reading it in one evening because I wanted to find out who Icarus is and what happened to Skye and Lazarus. Plus, of course, what happened to Becky. Throughout there’s dropped hints as to what happened or what will happen as the characters are talking about their past. There’s multiple narrators and My Side of the Diamond is written as if they’re talking to the interviewer, Mr Jones.
I found Jazmin, the main narrator quite irritating at times. I understand she’s young but at times she just seemed unable to sympathise or empthasise with Becky’s anxiety and eating disorder. This just made me think she was a horrible person and I preferred reading the other narrators more even though they contributed less. She was also shoe-horned into a very unbelievable romance which just got in the way of the plot.
I enjoyed the plot of the book. There’s aliens, secret agents going after the aliens, and also some kind of evil robot which enjoys murderous rampages. There’s not much action and a lot of the book is taken up of talking but it’s still very fast-paced. If I was in a ‘Let’s read about aliens’ mood then I think I would have enjoyed this My Side of the Diamond even more.
I received My Side of the Diamond* by Sally Gardner from the publisher, Hot Key Books. This is an unbiased and honest review.