“Ultraviolet” by R.J. Anderson

This review was originally published at Good Reads.

This is a story about a teenage girl named Alison, who watched a fellow classmate Tori disintegrate before her very eyes. Due to her synesthesia, she thinks she is responsible for Tori’s disappearance – and so does everyone else. She is then sent to a mental hospital, where she tries to figure out what is wrong with her and what exactly happened to Tori.

Since Alison has synesthesia, the descriptions of the colors Alison hears, the lies she tastes – and all the things she senses – are creative and well-written.

All the characters are important. There aren’t any characters used to dump information on the reader or anything – everyone has a role, even the minor characters.

In the end, Alison finally learns to fully embrace her synesthesia and uses it to solve many problems, including the one in the climax of the book.

She learns that everyone around her had something to hide (this is not necessarily a bad thing) and that the thing that everyone had to hide was usually a tragedy in their past. She also learned that two important people in her life were not what they seemed.

The mystery of Tori’s death and whether or not Alison was responsible was compelling. I did not want to stop reading.

There are a couple of plot twists I won’t go into here, because that would spoil the book. I kind of saw them coming too, but I didn’t mind because I was hoping the story would go in those directions anyway.

I sincerely hope there will be a sequel to this one.

Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for letting me read this book. It will be released in September of this year.