Things We Have in Common - by Tasha Kavanagh (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published: Edinburgh: Canongate, 2016.

Book Synopsis

"[A] perfectly orchestrated girl-who-cried-wolf thriller."--The New York Times Book Review

A dark, utterly compulsive novel about what happens when the warped imagination of a teenage girl turns into reality...

When fifteen-year-old Yasmin--obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers--sees a sinister man watching Alice Taylor from the school fence, she becomes convinced he's planning to take her. After all, who wouldn't want the popular and perfect Alice?

Then Yasmin realizes if she can find out who he is before he acts, she'll be the only one who can tell the police, save Alice and become Alice's heroine. But as Yasmin discovers more about this man, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn't need Alice after all...

And then Alice vanishes.

Review Quotes

"[A] perfectly orchestrated girl-who cried-wolf thriller.... Kavanagh's second-person narration ... reveals the very thin line that separates garden-variety teenage agita from dangerous delusion.... [T]he artfulness with which [Kavanagh] deceives and manipulates is so downright creepy that one periodically finds oneself in the discomfiting posture of cheering on the bullies and the mean girls."-The New York Times Book Review

"[W]ildly clever...spectacular...The conclusion underscore[s] the author's searing insight into teenage behavior and the desperation for connection."-Publishers Weekly

"An unreliable narrator in the most intriguing way.... A quick, thoroughly enjoyable read."-Booklist

"A tale of loneliness and teenage obsession which could be the next Gone Girl success story."-Independent (UK)

"A brilliantly twisted coming-of-age tale... The story chillingly, compulsively unravels."-Sunday Express

"A striking and highly enjoyable debut."-Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author

"Tasha Kavanagh's Yasmin is as complex and believable a narrator as you will find. Her honesty drives the novel to its unflinching, brilliant conclusion and is why Things We Have in Common is so disturbing...so impossible to set aside." -Travis Mulhauser, author of Sweetgirl

"With a dark and suspenseful plot that keeps the reader guessing until the final pages, Things We Have in Common is an assured debut narrated by an alarming and original voice." -The Irish Times

"Kavanagh does orchestrate some successful plot twists that are reminiscent of other psychological thrillers-classics by Ruth Rendell, for example, or more recent hits like Gone Girl."-Kirkus Reviews

"A pitch-black comedy thriller."-The Guardian