Mirror Mirror

 

Mirror mirror

French edition : Le Livre de Poche de Jeunesse

English edition : Hachette UK Company

Number of pages : 375

Genre : Coming of age story/ Fiction

Publication year : 2017

Author : Cara Delevingne and Rowan Coleman

Summary

    It’s really hard to make a sum-up as intriguing as the one on the book. Indeed, on the back cover there are only 4 words.

    Red is a teenager who loves music. Red has a group of music with Leo, Rose and Naomi. This music group of friends will have to face a terrible event : Naomi’s disappearance. During the whole story we will follow Red point of view, but his or her problems too. You are probably wondering why I wrote his or her, the answer is simple : until the middle of the book we don’t know if Red is a girl or a boy. As a reader you will have to lead several inquiries : what happened to Naomi, who is Red, who really are the other characters… It’s your turn to discover it !

Criticism

    So first, this novel is weird but in a right way. Indeed, the format of the book is not common : there is the story, some flashbacks, photos (which help us for the inquiry), “screenshots”… This diversity of type writing is really catching, we always want to know what is the next different type of writing. To me, it’s one of the things that makes the novel really original. Another point of originality is the story itself. This is a mix of several genres and several stories crossed with each other in one big story. At first we can think it’s an initiatory novel with a lost teenager who will try to find his identity, then we think it’s a detective novel but in reality it’s all of this. I think we can’t define a genre for this book because it’s I suppose, the aim of the author, to show that everyone or everything in the world don’t need to be define and perfect. More precisely the detective part of this novel is well-written and told. There are some clues but we learn things just at the moment we need. Concerning the “bildungsroman” part, it fits to everyone because all “types” (it'sreally cliché to say this like that but I don't know how to express it better)of teenagers are represented and they are all trying to grow up with a different way. This is really interesting to analyze.

    Concerning the characters they are all touching because each one has his own way to act or think, his own personality, his own problems, his own wound, his own fears or his own fight(s) to lead. But once again I’m disturbed (but it’s a really good thing) because for Red in the first part of the book we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. As a reader, I find this difficult, because it’s I think hard to identify yourself as Red and be moved by this character. Indeed, we know him or her like a banal person, not like a confidant. While I was reading, I felt closer to her or him when I learned who he/she really was. Moreover, all along the book we have the points of view of several characters. On one hand, it takes us away from Red (we have less information which come from her or him)but on the other hand it’s really interesting. Indeed it allows us to discover the other characters and also to have a different look on the investigation.

Final conclusion

Original and remarkable book which leads us to think and asks ourselves.

So are you going to read it ?

Other information

In the end of my book there was a Q and A. One of the questions which was asked was if Cara Delevingne envisaged to write a second volume. She answered that she didn’t know but she would like to make her characters relive !

And you, what do you think about it, do you want a second volume ?

The song

Scared of the dark , Lil Wayne, Ty Dolla $ign and XXX Tentacion. I think it represents well the uneasiness of the main characters and above all the way they express it : they try convince themselves they aren’t afraid but it’s false !

My note : 8/10

Characters : 1/2               My taste: 1,5/2

Story: 2,5/4                    Originality: 3/2