Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala

Tell Me a Secret by Holly Cupala
320 Pages (Hardcover)
HarperTeen
September 20, 2011
Source: Won
Format: Audio Book

It's tough living in the shadow of a dead girl. . . .

In the five years since her bad-girl sister Xanda's death, Miranda Mathison has wondered about the secret her sister took to the grave, and what really happened the night she died. Now, just as Miranda is on the cusp of her dreams--a best friend to unlock her sister's world, a ticket to art school, and a boyfriend to fly her away from it all--Miranda has a secret all her own.

When two lines on a pregnancy test confirm her worst fears, Miranda is stripped of her former life. She must make a choice with tremendous consequences and finally face her sister's demons and her own.

In this powerful debut novel, stunning new talent Holly Cupala illuminates the dark struggle of a girl who must let go of her past to find a way into her own future.It's tough living in the shadow of a dead girl. . . . In the five years since her bad-girl sister Xanda's death, Miranda Mathison has wondered about the secret her sister took to the grave, and what really happened the night she died. Now, just as Miranda is on the cusp of her dreams--a best friend to unlock her sister's world, a ticket to art school, and a boyfriend to fly her away from it all--Miranda has a secret all her own. When two lines on a pregnancy test confirm her worst fears, Miranda is stripped of her former life. She must make a choice with tremendous consequences and finally face her sister's demons and her own. In this powerful debut novel, stunning new talent Holly Cupala illuminates the dark struggle of a girl who must let go of her past to find a way into her own future.

This review will be a bit different because this is my first audio book ever (well except for The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe that we had to read along to in third grade). So, I will do this in two parts and try to separate the story from the audio.


The Audio:


I have decided I don't like audio books. Not this one specifically, just in general. I find it extremely difficult to concentrate and found myself missing details.  The audio was not bad, I just couldn't focus. Actually, I really enjoyed the reader's many voices. It was easy to differentiate between characters, so that was not as big as a problem as I thought it would be. My only issue with the voices is that the one she used for Essence was so annoying I wanted to punch things. Other than that, if you like audio, this was very good quality (then again, I have no real reference material).


The Book:


I read Cupala's second book before reading this one (both standalones) so I had guesses of  what to expect from her writing style. If you're wondering what that is, it would be a heartbreaking story, a hopeful ending and great character development and plotting. Did I get that? Definitely. 


Miranda - Rand for short - is still living in the shadow of her dead sister. More accurately, she would give anything to just be like her. When she becomes pregnant and catapults from the "good daughter" to just as screwed up as the dead one, her whole life changes. When secrets come out that changes everything she felt and knew... the future looks even more uncertain. Rand has to learn to separate herself from a future of thinking in her sister's past in order to become her own person and truly be happy for the first time in over five years. 


I decided with this novel that I will read anything that Cupala writes. She has a way of tackling a really difficult situation in a heartbreaking yet hopeful way while still depicting it very realistically. This is a hard task to complete! The only way to really describe how I felt while hearing this novel was that I wanted to pull Rand out of her world and hug her. To give her all the love and attention that she is deprived from. That may be Cupala's true talent - making the characters so real that the reader has no choice but to feel for them.


If you are a fan of self-suffering in the form of heart wrenching literature, read this one. In other words, if you like serious contemporaries, I would recommend Tell Me a Secret.