DNF at 40%.

This book started out great. I loved the short chapters and the different points of view. The back and forth timeline didn’t feel confusing in a way that these easily can and I always love when there are case documents in a book.

I liked the idea of a mystery unraveling and trying to figure out what happened and why buuuuut after 20% of this it became redundant, boring, and slow.

I looked at spoiler reviews and everything seems a little too obvious and like there isn’t any big twist or interesting ending. It doesn’t feel worth it to trudge through.

I do like the writing and the quirks of the characters. And the fact that this book is entirely different from anything I’ve ever read – who knew there was a Simulated Patients program?

If you like Karen McManus, you might like this. Or if you’re on the younger side of young adult. I think my preteen self would have loved this.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advanced copy!

This one wasn't for me, I'm afraid. The pacing was all off and I struggled to get into it, and once I did, I was left unsatisfied. There are a lot of dark topics in this book and they weren't handled the best. I usually love books told in multiple formats but somehow here it just didn't work.

I have always been a fan of Vicki Grant’s work, but found this one a little unsettling. The multiple POVs that jumped back and forth in the timeline leading up to the party were jam-packed with heavy topics that were not revealed in ways a teenager would be able to grasp. I didn’t feel connected to any of the characters or struggles, perhaps in part due to the clunky pacing of the plot leading up to Viv’s overdose. The ending came abruptly and was predictable and unrealistic. The length of this story felt like an investment, but wasn’t worth the time.

Tell Me When You Feel Something is about Viv, a college student working as a simulated patient during the summer break at medical school, and one day at a party Viv takes a pill and falls into a coma. The police are diligently working to find the person that provided the drugs to her. Viv's friend Davida swears that Viv is perfect and would never take drugs, even if only she's been her friend for a little over a month. Which I found odd that there is this girl that's only known her friend for a month and goes to the police on her own volition to tell her how much of a model citizen her friend is, when she was anything but. Viv definitely had her issues and being an alcoholic and drug addict were one of them, she really needed help. The pacing of the novel is really slow, so it took me a long time to finish it, and frankly was quite boring. I just couldn't quite get into the book. The premise sounded interesting, but the book didn't have the same energy as it's summary. I gave it 2 stars because I know an author spends a lot of time and effort to make their book come to life. While others may like it, I wasn't a big fan, and unfortunately the story fell flat for me.

This book offers multiple perspectives to process why a teenage girl has overdosed/gone into a coma. The story unfolds for me unevenly via changes in first/third person voice, an unfocused and confusing narrative, and without a cohesive organized structure to help the reader process what has happened and who the characters are. The chapters were for me too short to provide an understanding of the different voices/characters and I never had a strong sense of the characters as individuals versus a general amalgamation of parts of a bigger story. The book also starts abruptly without providing the reader context as to who Viv (main character) is and what has happened, leading to an sense of disorganization for me that was never resolved. I struggled with the format, the lack of orientation to characters, and felt the writing was simplistic and lacked depth to give the reader, an outsider, an insider's understanding of what was going on and why characters behaved/thought as they did.

I often read YA books to help maintain insight into adolescents today, to understand shifts in how adolescents express themselves, how they talk, how they navigate identity and relationships, and to understand the pressures that unfold for new cohorts and generations. This book did not provide any nuanced insights into today's adolescents and lacked the broader developmental influences and experiences that shape developmental change. With a more even pace, more developed chapters and unique voices, and a strong grounding in adolescent development and mental health, this book could have had potential.

Overall this was a decent read, I would have liked to see trigger warnings for the sexual assault content. I enjoyed the various points of view however I didn't really feel like I got to know the characters all that well. I would have liked to see more in depth character development. I enjoyed that there were police reports in the reading as well This is definitely an important topic to address and it's good that the audience is geared towards teens and young adults. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mind bending, thriller with a twist. A fast paced read that keeps you guessing! I loved that this was both mystery and YA. Told from two perspectives, with time jumps, but totally easy to keep up with. No confusion. A very interesting read.

Tell Me When You Feel Something is one of those rare books that is about young adults, but doesn't read like YA, which is so often under- or over-written, or relies on clichés and comes across pandering or condescending. This book takes us into a gritty, realistic world of addiction, secrets, and the daily pressures young people face, without being judgmental or moralizing. Grant tells a compelling and relatable story, never shying away from the darkness her characters face. The simulated patient setting/story line was really interesting to me, as I've never seen that in a novel before. I also really like how the characters and scenarios they were playing as "SP's" was interwoven with Viv and Davida's personal lives. As a filmmaker, I always love when writers are able to make something in a science field relatable to creative endeavors.
The only real fault I have with this story is that it does get confusing at times, and with the ending especially. I was expecting this to be more of an unauthorized psychological or pharmaceutical experiment, which I would've found more interesting than the way it actually plays out, but overall, it's a good book and worth reading.

Vivienne Braithwaite, the beautiful, vibrant, and charismatic teen is hospitalized and lies in a coma after taking a pill at a party. Video footage of the event leads to questions about where she got the drug, if it was an intentional overdose, and if the medical school where she worked as a "simulated patient" may be more dangerous than it appears.

Tell Me When you Feel Something is a dark YA mystery thriller which follows the events before and after a teen, Viv, ends up in a coma after popping a party-drug. It combines a mix of interviews, reports and character perspectives that slowly reveal Viv's true character and what really happened. Viv volunteers as a simulated patient at the medical school where her and her friends, Davida and Tim, help pre-med students practice providing care for different medical conditions they might experience in the field. As events unfold, the reader is exposed to Viv's less that picture perfect existence that she portrays to her friends and family. The story turns very dark by the end and includes material that might be triggering for some readers including addiction and sexual assault. Although the premise for this novel was compelling I didn't feel connected to any of the characters making this a so-so, neither good or bad, read for me. I felt like the characters had a lot of potential but I was just left feeling indifferent towards them.

Tell Me When You Feel Something is an interesting YA mind-bendy thriller about two girls who met as simulated patients at the local medical school. When something happens to one of them, the other is on a journey to try to figure it out, but you get the feeling that she's not telling the reader everything. The book flashes from the past to the present between the two girls' perspectives. Overall, I enjoyed this quick, fast-paced read!

This was had more dark social issues than I was expecting of a YA novel! I enjoyed the telling from the different narratives and was definitely surprised by the thrilling twist at the end. The setting of a medical school simulation lab really intrigued me and is what ultimately made me apply for an ARC.

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Tell Me When You Feel Something is told in multiple POVs and tells the events taking place before and after the main character, Viv, is put in a coma after an overdose that has suspicious circumstances around it.

This book was kind of a mess. I've been on a big YA thriller/mystery kick lately, but this book just wasn't what I wanted it to be.

The story is told through multiple POVs, which isn't normally an issue for me, but they were told in a mix of first- and third-person, which I thought was odd. There was also a strange mix of present and past tense being used. Even though the story was told in a mix of past and present timelines, I didn't think that choice was necessary, and it often took me out of the story.

The pacing was also incredibly slow. Normally the mix of short chapters, multiple POVs, and mixed format (between narrative and police interviews) increases a story's pacing, but for some reason, it had the opposite effect with this book, and the story took me days to get through.

The ending I found both unsatisfying and predictable; I had seen it coming for a while. And I was never particularly invested in any of the characters or their arcs, which caused me to almost DNF the book a few times simply because I just couldn't care about them no matter how hard I tried.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend this book. There's a lot of potentially triggering content in this book, but there are no warnings provided in the story, and I don't think this content was handled in the way it should've been.

TW: alcoholism, overdose, sexual assault, suicidal thoughts

So… I was pretty excited to read this book. I didn't really have any expectations, however it deals with important topics, and I don't read that much thrillers, so I was curious.
But things escalated quickly for me, and not in a good way. I didn't care for any of the characters, and I thought things happened way too slowly. Moreover, I found everything really predictable and the plot-twits were ill-timed.
Also, can we talk about how selfish and self-centered every. single. adult. is? Not one is good (except maybe for Stu, but that's it) and really, this is disheartening.

This book wasn't it for me. It's supposed to be a thriller, but I didn't get any thriller's vibes, and as for the 'mystery' part, well I didn't find it mysterious either. If you're looking for a good YA thriller, you won't find it in Tell Me When You Feel Something.

I was disappointed in this book.

It was too slow and I found myself not even being able to finish it. That is rare for me.

I couldn't put this down. I needed to know what happened to Viv. I needed to know what happened that night. Kept me on my toes until the very end.

TW: sexual assault, rape, grooming, alcoholism, drugs

This book grabbed my attention from the beginning. I really enjoyed the writing style, with the short chapters and the time jumps. I liked reading the book from the two different perspectives, past and present tense.

I was invested in the story and wanted to find out what happened to Viv. I was shocked by the ending, I didn’t see it coming at all until I got towards the end of the book.

The book was a bit confusing at times and I sometimes forgot about who the characters were because they were skipped over quite quickly a lot of the time. But I still quite enjoyed the book and loved the concept of it.

NOTE: There were some errors in my Kindle version of the book. The paragraphs were separated incorrectly and the transcripts in the story were out of order, which did confuse me and make it harder to follow the story.

i wanted to love it so bad, i loved the idea of the book. i just feel like the characters were extremely bland. it took me ages to read because i couldn’t really get into it. also my dogs name is viv so that really through me off lol. overall i enjoyed it, but it wasn’t anything off the charts.

Tell Me When You Feel Something was equal parts drama, intrigue and mystery. I couldn’t put this books down until I knew the whole story behind Viv. I could totally picture this as a movie or show as well. Something to think about...! This book will be a huge hit, I just know it!

Thank you to NetGalley for a digital copy of this book.

Tell Me When You Feel Something did a great job of portraying this scenario which is all too familiar in our society in a way that is very immersive and relatable to readers. We witness Vivienne, the protagonist, deteriorate from this kind and bubbly young girl with feuding parents into a person in a shockingly different predicament. Someone in a very dangerous, very real, and very scary situation.

The way that Grant illustrated this transition from start to finish of the novel was very effectively done. Although it may have been easy to predict the ending about 70% into the novel, the most engrossing element of the book was definitely the unraveling of Vivienne's situation and her overall development as a character.

This book does take a hot minute to pick up. The sinister themes promised in the synopsis aren't apparent until about 50% into the book as per the markings on my Kindle. Things unfold quite quickly from thereon.

I did notice that there were some errors in my Kindle version of this novel. Some sections were highlighted in red, paragraphs were separated incorrectly and elements of the transcripts throughout the novel were out of order. Unfortunately, this did make the story harder to follow at times and detracted from the overall reading experience.

I received a copy of this book from Penguin Teen and Netgalley.

The beginning of this book was very strong but by the time I got a third through it kind of sputtered and never seemed to get back on track for me.

The writing is excellent. The plot kind of trying to be really shocking if that makes sense?