I wanted so badly to like this book. I was so excited to read it! The premise is one that I fall for again and again: a group of teens who think they have each other perfectly boxed in are forced to spend time with one another and ultimately realize that they're not so different after all. Basically, I'll pick up any book that resembles The Breakfast Club. Based on the summary, I figured that What the Other Three Don't Know would be The Breakfast Club, but in the wilderness. 


It was, essentially, but it was not done well. The dialogue had me cringing and thinking, "nobody actually talks like this!" The characters lacked growth and there didn't seem to be any reason for Indie, the protagonist, to go from not wanting anything to do with Skye, the soccer player, to it "feeling right" to sit so she was leaning against him. This is just an example that likely doesn't make much sense out of context of the book; don't worry, it doesn't make much sense in context either.

This was a very interesting story. The style was such that even when things were intense the pace felt slow. I read it in an afternoon and enjoyed it, but would have loved it to have more depth and character development. It told of the characters’ flaws and events in the past and present, but didn’t really spend much time on feelings.

I wanted more at the end to know what would happen to the characters, but did like the transformation and forgiveness that took place. Also, it was very good to be reminded that we really don’t know most people and understand why they do what they do. We all have secrets or things that most people don’t understand.

Content: violence/injury due to nature, mention of teen suicide, handful of mild swear words, mention of bullying.

3.5 Stars

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I found this story engaging but also hard to get through. I got distracted a lot during this book because I felt like it didn't really pull me in.

Overall, the premises of this book is great, but I felt like it was missing a LOT.

This is one of those books that you keep reading to the end to see how things work out. I thought it was a great young adult read exploring grief, forgiveness, and making oneself vulnerable to others. It shows that when we open up to others we can form friendships in unlikely places. I love the challenge the author posed in his author's note at the end to be who we are, not hide behind who others think we are or want us to be.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Lately I have seen so many books who are trying to capture the chemistry that the movie "The Breakfast Club" has. Karen McManus was close in her "One of Us is Lying" but one of my favorite were books by Christopher Pike (The Weekend, Chain Mail etc) This one tried. It really did but it fell flat.

This deals with 4 students (two boys and two girls) who have to go rafting as a requirment for a class they will be taking once school starts up again. Of course they all fit into a "stereotype" , a loner, a jock, and outsider and an Instagram influencer which I guess is the new way of saying a popular one. While there were some positive points to the book, I liked the message of acceptance but because I couldn't connect with any of the characters, I just couldn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

Indie lives with her Grandpa after her father leaves and her mother dies in a rafting accident. Indie was assigned for a class trip on the same river and is not sure she can do this.

"Everything and everyone deserves to be sought after and known."

This story reminded me of The Breakfast Club! I really enjoyed this novel.
Thank you to Publisher and NetGalley for this eARC

When I selected this book on Netgalley, I wasn't sure what to expect. I loved that it was set in the state that I love above all others.

This coming of age story follows Indie. Indie lives with her grandpa after her parents' deaths. She is trying to cope with the loss of her mom on the river that she has been assigned for a class trip. She doesn't think she is ready, but the trip is for a class that she really wants to take and so she goes accompanied by three classmates. Their guide turns out to be the man she blames for her mother's death.

The book talks about the truths we all hide and talks about what we show the world. I was definitely emotionally invested in these characters. I couldn't put it down, but it wasn't an easy read emotionally. There is some definite emotional meat in this book and it addresses some things that the characters were forced to face as they had been avoiding. Ultimately it is about friendship, truth, and forgiveness.

I think this book is important in that it shows that we do not have the whole picture not even with the people that we think we know.

I really liked this book. 2 girls, 2 guys on a school camping/rafting trip. Some harrowing experiences, some coming out of their shells and i guess finding themselves or even choosing their new paths for senior year. In parts my heart ached for the main character Indie, and others it soared for her. I read this book all in a day and was putting off things so i could finish it. Great book that I will definitely look for this author again.

A very quick read with a wonderful message. I only wish I knew more about rafting and climbing because I think I really would have appreciated that additional layer to this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

An interesting story idea that I feel wasn't executed as well as it could have been. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC egalley.

Thank you for the opportunity to review What the Other Three Don't Know! I truly enjoyed the story and am excited to feature it on my blog.

To me, what was most intriguing were the relationships between characters and their development as the narrative progressed. The characters felt very genuine throughout, progressing from angsty teenagers to less-angsty teenagers who saw a little bit more good in life than before. I was intrigued by the relationship between Indie and Skye and would've liked to see their connection grow a little bit more, but this wasn't a huge issue for me. I"m a romance fiend and love a good romantic subplot, but I also see how this novel didn't necessarily warrant that kind of heat. The characters are what shine, and I got to see their growth in its entirety.

I also loved the descriptions of the beauty and raw power of nature. It's very clear to me that Hyde loves spending time in nature or is a fantastic researcher because the details were so interesting. From what little backpacking, climbing, and rafting I've done, everything seemed to pass muster for me. The way Hyde described Hells Canyon transported me into the story and has me wanting to go sit outside and take in the world aorund me. Having that kind of eye is a gift, and then having the ability to reproduce that feeling in an entirely different environment is something special.

As I was reading, I did notice that the four main characters started to blend together. They were about 60% distinctive, but in scenes where there weren't many dialogue tags or multiple characters were speaking, I sometimes had trouble discerning who was who. I would've liked to see the characters be a little bit more individual and develop their own speaking patterns and personalities.

Again, thank you for this review copy. All the best, Annie.

I really liked this book. I liked how the characters all shared their secrets without receiving a huge intolerant reaction, which I think is far more reflective of young people today. So often a story seems to centre around the apparent horror of whatever is revealed but actually these kids just accepted these things as no big deal.

I enjoyed the story and found it to be nicely paced - not too quick but at no point dull- and the descriptions of the surroundings were good.

My only.issues with the book - and this is why I haven't given it the full five stars- are as follows: a lot of climbing and rafting technical language that was lost on me as I don't know masses about either sport; a few continuity issues, for example a character leaving an area, only to be taken from the same area a paragraph or so later; a few fairly crucial items being lost but then seeming to magically reappear without explanation; the dog being 'him' at the start and 'her' by the end. This said, I did really enjoy the book.

I think it's great that so many books that has focus on mental health, gets published, but this one fell kind of flat to me.
I had high hopes for it, but i did not warm up to Indie and was mostly annoying by her narrating, and i just felt meh about the whole book. But i am glad, i gave it a try.

In comparison to other YA novels,What the Other Three Don’t Know is unique from a stylistic perspective. It’s in first person retrospective, which is common in adult literature but rarely used in teen literature. This novel is very descriptive and contains a lot of good metaphors and similes. I also liked the references to physics and math. Some of the dialogue exchanges are amusing.
All four teen characters grow as individuals throughout the trip. I liked Shelby and Wyatt.
Unfortunately, the romance between Indie, the protagonist, and another character is forced and rushed due to how abruptly it progresses. A particular revelation about Skye makes him irredeemable.
Occasionally, the writing veers into purple prose. At times, the dialogue can be unnatural.
However, this novel still has merit as it comes in a different package than a typical YA novel..

I received a physical ARC for this one and have greatly enjoyed the way the novel handled dealing with grief so far. It was nuanced and felt so real in its complexity. Also appreciated the positive and thoughtful queer representation, which is especially meaningful since it's coming from Shadow Mountain Publishing. Haven't finished it quite yet but will post finished thoughts on Goodreads.

I got an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

First disclaimer: if you're a dumbass like me and you read the synopsis and think this is a girl-group book: it isn't. It's two girls and two boys. Just in case you were looking for wlw rep and stumbled across this and thought this was it.

What would've made this book an automatic 5 stars for me is having a more character study perspective. These are four kids stuck in a dangerous school trip with a guide that one of them blames of killing her mother, and all of them have secrets. It's in the freaking title! But it all came and went in a scene and a half, and I really wish we had had more of that, because it was my favorite part of the book. Not that I didn't care, but I cared less about what happened to them in the rapids than about getting to really know them. They were all really interesting and potentially complex characters, but the bits and pieces we get about their stories weren't enough, and at the end it made it seem like they were all just a bunch of stereotypes and tropes and personalities tied together to make functional characters.
The rowing and climbing scenes could've done with either more or less descriptions, because it fell in the midle and it ended looking like a lot of technical words that I didn't know the meaning of, English being my second language (but good enough to have a bilingual-level understanding of it). I really didn't understand what was going on in the end, I just knew they were struggling. And the days when they were camping felt a bit repetitive, though it's understandable. I loved the campfire chats and the group-cuddling scene and I wish we'd gotten more of that, instead of cooking trouts and climbing cliffs. There also could've been more character study in those scenes so it's a win-win.

Now talking about the MC, she was a bit insufferable at times, but she was going through a grieving process so it's understandable. What I didn't get was the whole list-making thing she had going on? I felt like it was just there to make her look edgy. A situation like a boy talking to her or something would come up and she would make a list in her head of all the things she could say/do in response to it. Then she would say "my favorite options are 1 and 3, but I ended up going with a mix of 2 and 4". This happens around 5 times in the book, more or less. And I just never understood how that was supposed to be funny/sassy/edgy? The first time it was okay, I guess, but by the fourth time I was annoyed and just wanted her to be upfront with what she wantes to say/do and just SAY IT. It had nothing to do with how she behaved the rest of the book, and this isn't a multiple universes novel so it made no sense. Btw this wasn't related to her trauma at all either.
The instalove she had with another boy in the group was also just too much. They knew each other before (and the other two kids in the trip) because they went to the same school, but they thought the other was just a walking stereotype of a weird girl/football guy or whatever. They knew NOTHING about each other. And they flirted and fell in love and kissed in, what, two days? At this point I was taking deep breaths and mentalizing myself like "okay, this was written by a man, just hold on, don't go apeshit over this" but THEN........

There's a gay character. You can just TELL the author hasn't made contact with the LGBT+ community since he watched some TV show in like 2012 with a gay character. The poor boy has to explain the other kids that he didn't CHOOSE to be gay and that he can't just come out and. The four MCs were in risk of LITERALLY FREEZING TO DEATH, so they had to cuddle together, and the author made the gay boy APOLOGIZE TO THE STRAIGHT ONE because it was his turn to cuddle behind him or whatever. Listen. I know how small towns are because I happen to live in one. But no gen Z kid is so out of the loop in 2019. Maybe some son-of-conservatives, or some Christian family, sure, but your average teenager knows better than that. And even if they didn't, it's fiction, you can CHOOSE to have a more progressive, up-to-date depiction of a gay character, and you just didn't. It was irrespondible, to say the least, to handle the gay character so poorly.

Nash, the guide, also needs a bit of revision. We're told he was the MC dead mom's friend for decades, and that he was there when she tragically died. Keyword: told. He does go into a whole "I'm hiding my grief" rant near the end, I'll give you that, but we had so little material to believe that they were close, lifelong friends.
At one point, he tells the MC how her mom died and the MC is surprised, but we weren't told why it was a revelation. Did she not know how her own mom died? Did anyone lie to her? We are so entangled into her still-spiraling grief that we don't get the minimm information to know what is going on, why it affects the MC the way it does, why it's important.
Sadly the fact that she lost her mom in a river accident felt like an afterthought, like the author had three characters that he liked a lot but needed a fourth one because he didn't like the rest as POV characters so he threw in a dead mother. This needs to be more developed, with the respect it deserves.

What the Other Three Don't Know tells the tale of 4 high school students who are going rafting down the rapids over summer vacation as part of a class they are taking in the next school year. Each student has their own drama, which we learn for about as the book goes on. The students are not friends, so it has a "Breakfast Club" type feel to it because of how they don't get along in the beginning.

I have to say, this book did not do it for me. I was struggling to get through the first half and powered through the second half because I knew if I stopped I wouldn't pick it back up again. The writing was fine, I more had an issue with the characters. I didn't feel drawn to or connected with any of them, and their development didn't mean anything to me. There was a weird dynamic between the students, which was seen during dialogue they were having with each other.

There was some action to this ending, which almost made up for the rest of it. I would have liked to see the book almost extend, to get some of the information about what happened when they went back to school. Like the Breakfast Club, you don't get to see that piece of it.

If you are a fan of the Breakfast Club or morally ambiguous characters who don't get along super well, I would definitely give this a shot. Also, if you like outdoor adventure settings in books.

3.5/5

I have a soft spot for stories about opposite characters who finally set aside their differences to help each other and become friends. ‘What the Other Three Don’t Know’ is a great example of what I like in a ‘coming to terms’ YA story.

I was first afraid to be a bit bored by the set up in a forest/river for a camping trip but I surprisingly enjoyed it. The nature brought a strange set up - both calm and dangerous - and I quite loved that part. All the descriptions about the river, fishing, rafting puzzled me but it didn’t keep me to be intrigued into their journey.

I liked Indie a lot. She reminded me a lot of Marin, the main character of Nina LaCour’s ‘We Are Okay’. She was distant, sad, but strong and very brave. She was not afraid to take the lead of her own insecurity to help everyone. And I liked that about her. Wyatt was my second favorite character but Shelby and Skye were sufficiently layered to be just as good.

The writing was easy, and some sentences still resonate in me. I loved all the comparisons and the metaphors about how river can teach us so many things about life.

A very pleasant read.

A lovely heartwarming novel. It took me a bit of time to warm up to the charcters but I definitely did. I like how well we got to know each person, I'd recommend this novel!

The Quick Cut: Four teens who have nothing in common bond together on a school trip.

A Real Review:
Thank you to Shadow Mountain Publishing for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

How did you fare in high school? Did you feel alone in a crowd of people or was your experience more fulfilling? Everyone feels misunderstood at some point, but it's what we do with it that matters. For these four teens on a school river rafting trip, they find that their fellow classmates get one another better than anticipated.

Indie wants to do anything but go on this trip. As much as she is in journalism class, she really doesn't know her fellow classmates. So when she gets paired up with three classmates who have very little in common with her, the expectations are low. Will she find an unexpected bond or instead be disappointed once again?

I really wanted to like this book, but found myself disappointed by this author again. He managed to build an intriguing premise and start a story with a solid foundation. The start has me interested in where this would go.

The problem is that, yet again, the author struggles to create relatable characters that make you want to read more. It took very few pages before I started tuning out and growing disinterested in the material. Maybe it's just me, but these characters blended one into the next.

With forgettable leads, this book fails to leave an impression.

My rating: 1 out of 5