Review: One Small Thing by Erin Watt

One Small Thing by Erin Watt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this eARC novel from Edelweiss. This is my honest review.

For the last 3 years, Beth has been walking on eggshells at home and at school. Ever since her older sister, Rachel, got hit by a car when crossing the street and died, Beth has tried to do everything perfectly to keep everyone happy. At school, classmates still give her the pity, sad looks, so Beth tries to pretend everything is fine. And at home, her parents act like Rachel just left for an extended time to another location, freezing everything in their house exactly how it was when Rachel died.

Beth hasn't been able to talk to anyone about how she feels about Rachel dying, because nobody wants to admit that it really happened 3 years ago.

What really triggered Beth to go wild, though, was when she found out her parents found her college applications and kept them - rather than letting them be mailed to the schools she wants to go to. Beth wants to go as far away from Darling as she can, because then no one will know about her sister and act weird around her. But her parents have decided that she is going to do just that - send her to Darling College and have her take over her father's business, making sure that she never leaves.

So on a feeling of recklessness and being in a prison, Beth decides to go to a party in another town, with strangers to feel some excitement and to feel alive. And then when she sees a gorgeous, aloof guy at the party, she decides that she wants to know this guy, possibly even make out with him.

When she sees him in school the next week, she didn't expect him to be revealed as the guy who killed her sister 3 years ago by running her over with a stolen car. Chase has been changed by being in juvie for 3 years, and just from the little bit she remembers from their night, Beth can't hate him for something that was an accident.

But with the harassment and anger Chase has stirred up by coming back to school for his senior year, the more Beth finds herself wanting to protect him and stand up for him, even though her friends and family think he should go back to jail.

Their forbidden friendship gets tested over and over, and with so many people against Chase because of his past sins, Beth may not be able to keep her new friendship and romance without inflicting even more anger and pain.

This was a good book, full of lessons learned and secrets. I liked it for the most part, but I did come to hate a lot of the secondary characters - who had no redeeming qualities by the end of the book, in my opinion.

For instance, Beth's parents are terrible. I know they are grieving, but they are treating Beth like she is going to break their hearts, when all she wants to do is be a teenager and live a great life for her senior year. They go way beyond the extreme to keep her contained to where they want her. To be honest, I probably would have ran away and joined the circus before staying in that house with those restrictions they were piling on her.

Then Beth's friends. They were getting so nasty about Chase being at their school, but they weren't really listening to Beth - Rachel's SISTER - when she said that she wasn't bothered by it and to drop it. They were making it harder for Beth, which wasn't helping her overall look on life when she had a bad home attitude and now a bad school attitude.

And then there was Beth. Don't get me wrong, I liked her, but she was always worried about what other people thought of her. I know there are a lot of people out there like this, but in my mind, she's in high school, so do what you want, because once you get to college, you can start over. Beth was always throwing a tantrum because she wasn't getting what she wanted, and that was getting old, very fast for me.

The only person who I loved, loved, loved in this book was Chase. He has had a crap of a life so far, but that has made him a better person - not worse. Instead of having juvie hardened him, he has learned what is important in life and is not going to take anything for granted anymore. He teaches Beth a lot of lessons that she takes to heart and starts inputting them into her life.

Overall, this was a good book. There were some flaws, but then again this is high school, so of course it will go through cycles to get to the great ending that Erin Watt is known for. I'm so glad I got a chance to read this eARC and I can't wait until it gets published so I can add it to my personal library!

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