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A review by hdbblog
Escape by Emma Eggleston
2.0
TW: depression, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, substance abuse, self harm
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I definitely want to start with the positives about this book, because I believe that it dives into an important space that isn't often considered. By creating Matty's character, Eggleston is shedding light on the deep divides that still exist between the way men are taught to deal with mental health, and women are. We all know that in general it's still a tough topic for a lot of people. However Matty's character admits that he "knows" that this is not what guys like him are supposed to feel. He's embarrassed to talk about it with his friends and ashamed that he can't just "fix" himself. Even his dad's reaction to his ultimate confession was spot on. I appreciated that immensely. It's important for all readers to see themselves in characters, and stories that deal with mental health usually tend to have female protagonists. It's nice to see a shift happening.
Past this though, the story becomes tough to follow. My biggest issue was that after the initial build out of our two main characters, there is no more character development in the story. Anyone who knows my reading habits knows that character development is a big item on my enjoyment checklist. These two characters felt really thin, which made it hard to connect with them beyond a surface level. This led to the romance portions of this story feeling really rushed, and mildly uncomfortable.
Added on top of this is the fact that this story relies very heavily on dialogue to progress the story. This doesn't help much with feeling of thin characters, and also makes it hard to really immerse yourself in the story. I think this could have been okay, if the dialogue was a little bit more solid and fleshed out. However most of the interactions between Laila and Matty feel flat because they are generic conversations that any two sets of people could have. There weren't a lot of emotions build into their dialogue and, again, that made it hard to really understand them on a deeper level.
The ending of this book was the hardest part for me. I will not spoil it, for any potential readers. I also don't necessarily disagree with it but, because I never felt connected to these characters, it felt like a shock I was not prepared for. This story has a lot of potential. Like I mentioned above, the mere fact that it focuses on a male character while dealing with mental health is wonderful. I just feel like it needs some more editing, and some polish, to live up to that potential.
***
***
I definitely want to start with the positives about this book, because I believe that it dives into an important space that isn't often considered. By creating Matty's character, Eggleston is shedding light on the deep divides that still exist between the way men are taught to deal with mental health, and women are. We all know that in general it's still a tough topic for a lot of people. However Matty's character admits that he "knows" that this is not what guys like him are supposed to feel. He's embarrassed to talk about it with his friends and ashamed that he can't just "fix" himself. Even his dad's reaction to his ultimate confession was spot on. I appreciated that immensely. It's important for all readers to see themselves in characters, and stories that deal with mental health usually tend to have female protagonists. It's nice to see a shift happening.
Past this though, the story becomes tough to follow. My biggest issue was that after the initial build out of our two main characters, there is no more character development in the story. Anyone who knows my reading habits knows that character development is a big item on my enjoyment checklist. These two characters felt really thin, which made it hard to connect with them beyond a surface level. This led to the romance portions of this story feeling really rushed, and mildly uncomfortable.
Added on top of this is the fact that this story relies very heavily on dialogue to progress the story. This doesn't help much with feeling of thin characters, and also makes it hard to really immerse yourself in the story. I think this could have been okay, if the dialogue was a little bit more solid and fleshed out. However most of the interactions between Laila and Matty feel flat because they are generic conversations that any two sets of people could have. There weren't a lot of emotions build into their dialogue and, again, that made it hard to really understand them on a deeper level.
The ending of this book was the hardest part for me. I will not spoil it, for any potential readers. I also don't necessarily disagree with it but, because I never felt connected to these characters, it felt like a shock I was not prepared for. This story has a lot of potential. Like I mentioned above, the mere fact that it focuses on a male character while dealing with mental health is wonderful. I just feel like it needs some more editing, and some polish, to live up to that potential.