Thank you for providing a copy of this book for review however I was unable to open the file for this document unfortunately! Apologies.

An odd mixture of teen social commentary, romance, conspiracy theories and aliens that ultimately just wasn't for me.

This is one of those strange books, that although I read it in one sitting and was hooked from start-to-finish, I didn't finish it thinking 'That was an amazing novel!'

Maybe it's because I found the ending obvious and I was frustrated by my review copies poor formatting (the names of the characters being interviewed were jumbled, and it took a few goes to guess who was the subject) that it didn't have the wow factor for me. Characterisation was strong with some (Alex and Jaz especially) but felt underdeveloped in others

Many of the reviews seem to hold the physical copy of the novel as it's main selling point (some earning extra stars for it) so it's possible that a basic e-galley just didn't hold as much sway for me and add to the over-all experience.

I'd recommend this as a quick holiday read.

Interesting enough story but told through a format that may prove confusing for young readers, was surprised to see the sci-fi themes

This book just wasnt for me.
I will say that it was very well thought out and fantastically written. It had a very interesting writing style and I didnt know where the story was going for a long time.
But I'm not normally a lover of Alien books and this one sadly was no exception.
I did think the switch from characters could have been smoother but we still knew who was who.
Overall a very interesting read but just not my style

If you like aliens, this is for you. To my knowledge, this is the first time that prize-winning (and excellent) author Sally Gardner has tackled the sci-fi genre, and she approaches it from a bizarre angle that does take some time to get used to. Also, the first ten or so pages were filled with random squares that had me seriously worried that my Kindle had gone into meltdown.
It hadn’t. The significance of the notepaper kind of becomes apparent later on.
The book itself takes the form of a series of interviews, conducted by a mysterious ‘Mr Jones’, whom we never hear speak. The book is made up of the testimonies of various people connected to the disappearance of one Becky Barns and the man she vanished with: a man named Icarus. Told mainly through the eyes of Becky’s friend, Jazmin, and other people connected to the case, fragments of the plot are revealed to us in increments- as well as hinting at the tragic fate of the people wrapped up in the case as the friends become embroiled in Icarus’s story, and the story of two people he is supposed to have pushed off the roof of St. Paul’s twenty years ago. But if he did, why hasn’t he aged a day?
And there are aliens. It’s introduced with almost no subtlety, and only gets weirder from there: Icarus is an alien, there are UFO-sightings, mysterious government departments and a hateful alien-cyborg hybrid who pops out of a walled-up pantry and causes havoc. As you might imagine, this was cause for more than a few raised eyebrows on my part- and takes more than a little bit of effort to swallow and get on with the story.
If you do manage to get past the unexplained- and jarring- alien element, the story is at its best when it focusses on the characters themselves. Gardner knows how to craft characters you care about- especially the prickly Jazmin, the protagonist- and gradually creates a multi-layered, fascinating plot that explores everything from what it means to be human to the feeling of love. By the end, I was welling up.
My Side of the Diamond is an odd, but ultimately touching story. If you can get past the alien element, it proves to be a heartwarming explanation of love, humanity and more besides: if sci-fi is your thing, then this will be too.

My Side of the Diamond by Sally Gardner is a very curious tale that had me reading way outside of my comfort zone. It is part YA which I love, part thriller and mystery which I am lukewarm to and part science fiction which is so not my genre.

However, Sally Gardner has created a really compelling story and full bodied cast that I found myself unable to put the damn book down! The story is told from multi-perspective which lends the book an air of displacement and discomfort. I did not feel comfortable or settled reading it. I constantly questioned my characters – on their morals and what they said.

I do feel more settled now that I have finished My Side of the Diamond but it has left me irked in the best possible way.

I would love to know if the Lazarus theme is a link to David Bowie? There are too many shout outs. If anyone knows if this was a choice by Sally Gardner – or if indeed Sally Gardner you would like to answer this question for me – then I would be really grateful.

My Side of the Diamond is a strange little book that begs to be read.

My Side of the Diamond by Sally Gardner is available now.

For more information regarding Sally Gardner (@TheSallyGardner) please visit www.sallygardner.net.

For more information regarding Hot Key Books (HotKeyBooks) please visit www.hotkeybooks.com.

For more information regarding Bonnier Zaffre Books (@BonnierZaffre) please visit their Twitter page.

Hard to define, it's sci-fi, romance, mystery

Very different to Gardner's previous work, though I suppose there are some similarities to Maggot Moon. This will not appeal widely, being confusing at times - I spent a lot of the time reading it wondering where the author was taking me.

Told via several narrators, we build up a picture of a past disappearance, but the fantastical elements mean we are not sure if it was a death, a murder or just someone vanishing into thin air. Jazmin misses her best friend, and the book takes us with her as fantastical elements swirl around the plot seeming bizarre until they come together and make some sort of sense at the end, revealing what happened to Becky.

It's unusual, though this usually doesn't faze me, but I didn't take to the genre/plot. I didn't feel like giving up on it, I was intrigued enough to get to the end, but I finished and didn't feel particularly satisfied.

This is one I'd only recommend to very particular teen readers, most will find it a little too 'out there', it is smart and well-written with several identifiable voices, but is not going to keep the attention of the majority of 12-16 year olds.

With thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.

My Side of the Diamond is a story told from different narratives that build together to form a science fiction story all about love. The book illustrates all types of love, from maternal, paternal and love of a best friend and soul mate.
Jazmin's best friend Becky has jumped off the Shard and never hit the ground. Jazmin has taken the blame for this and tells her story to Mr Jones. However things are not always that straight forward. The story reveals UFO landings, transformation stones that bring back the dead and horrifying monsters made of flesh and wires.
The mysterious Mr Jones sets about interviewing all the family and friends and the story unfolds through their narratives. It stretches back many years but they all have one thing in common Icarus, a beautiful stranger who never ages and has eyes that hypnotise you. Prison is unable to hold him as he can walk through steel and everyone he meets fall in love with him.
A lot of fun, if a little complicated at times, I would recommend it for young adults or teenagers.

My Side of the Diamond is the latest novel by British author Sally Gardner. Employing the use of science fiction, Gardner explores the concept of love in a unique tale of a covered up alien invasion. The main characters are unfortunately caught up in the drama; however, no one will ever believe their story.

Jazmin Little’s best friend, Becky, has disappeared. Some say she was murdered, others claim she committed suicide, but what everyone agrees on is that she jumped from the top of the Shard in London, but never landed. Jazmin knows what happened but the authorities have torn her witness statement to shreds. Now everyone believes that she is the cause of Becky’s disappearance.

The reader plays an active role as the mysterious Mr. Jones who is interviewing a handful of characters involved with the mystery surrounding Becky’s fate. Jazmin and the others tell the reader, as Mr. Jones, the truth about the lead-up to the moment their lives changed forever. Jazmin explains the events that preceded Becky becoming infatuated with the enigmatic Icarus. From their first meeting, bizarre and frightening things began to occur. From Becky’s sudden recovery from anorexia as though she had just had an epiphany, to being chased by an impossible monster, the friends and their relatives are suddenly in serious danger.

Icarus claims to be an alien who has come to Earth to learn about love. Becky instantly believed him, however, Jazmin and the others remained sceptical. As they open up to Mr. Jones, they wish they could go back in time and change the way things panned out. In hindsight, they know who was good and who was bad, but at the time, it was impossible to know whom to trust.

Although the main story focuses on the relationship between Becky and Icarus and their resulting disappearance, Gardner also explores themes of social classes and friendship. Jazmin and Becky were polar opposite: Becky came from a family made of money, whereas Jazmin was lucky to have a can of baked beans for dinner. Despite this, they were best friends who did not let their backgrounds interfere with their relationship. The significance of their social class comes to light as Jazmin explains what happened at the trial after Becky’s disappearance. Being from such a low caste, it was easy for everyone to pin the blame on Jazmin.

The concept behind My Side of the Diamond is interesting, as is the method of narrating the story, however, it lacks any emotional connection. Mr. Jones, although having no dialogue of his own, comes across as an impassive character, and that is how I felt whilst reading the book. None of the characters were particularly relatable and it was difficult to care about what happened to them. Their circumstances were creepy, but also far-fetched and hard to comprehend.

Although Sally Gardner’s ideas are good, My Side of the Diamond is a disappointment, especially coming from a prize-winning author.

Clever, unusual, thought-provoking & extremely compelling - all the things you would expect from the masterful Gardner - and it's a quick read too. May lack mass appeal but well worth promoting to bookish teens.

"That illustrates the mother theory perfectly," said Becky. "She is just another loser exiled from the couple kingdom. Watch how fast your paper house burns down, Mrs Burns"

* *
2 / 5

I’m not really an alien book person. This is perhaps a peculiar quirk in my reading tastes: I love YA, I love sci-fi, and I love fantasy. I love books set on other worlds, around other cultures, that feature new, imaginative, and fascinating ways of existence and belief. So I like aliens. But I do not like books about aliens; books about UFOs and strange government programmes and weird aliens impersonating humans. Which is, weirdly, exactly what My Side of the Diamond turned out to be.

"Judge me, hate me, find me unforgiven. You won’t be the first. I have lived with it long enough. It changes nothing."

It didn’t start off like that. It started off with a girl, Jazmin, telling her peculiar story to a man. We are teased with a mystery: Jazmin’s best friend Becky jumped off a tower with a man, strangely called Icarus, and they both vanished before ever hitting the ground. Jazmin was scapegoated, her story laughed at in court, and her name and reputation dragged through the mud. But we aren’t there yet. Jazmin met Becky when they were both young; Jazmin stole her notebook, where she had written amazing stories about aliens in. Later, Becky’s mum pressures her into getting a publisher to sell her book, The Martian Winter, which later becomes a bestseller. Jazmin watches, distressed, as her own life falls apart between her poor, abandoning mother and being homeless, and as Becky becoming more and more withdrawn, refusing to eat.

The pair take a holiday to a small village, where Becky becomes obsessed with the story of a man called Icarus, who about twenty years ago convinced a young man, Lazarus who used to be called Luke before he rose from the dead, and Skye, the strange adopted daughter of a local artist called Phoebe, to jump from a tower. Becky goes to the prison to meet him, under the pretence of inspiration for another book, but instead of meeting a forty year old man, she meets a young seventeen year old. Who then appears in the pub, claiming to have walked through the walls of the prison to get there. Becky is instantly besotted with him.

“This house and the house in London, are built on lies,” she said. “Lies are bricks that the truth slowly moulders away until the house falls down”

It only really gets weirder and more complicated from there. We mostly hear from Jazmin, whose story crosses between her romance and sexual exploits with Becky’s half-brother Alex, and her encounters with a killer robot hybrid Doubleday, and odd masked men. But we also bounce backwards in time to hear from Rex, the brother of Lazarus, and his friend Mina, who is Alex’s mother, who knew Phoebe who’s strange daughter was Skye. There’s also the brother of Frank, who is Phoebe’s husband, who is a chimney-sweeper, and on and on go these connections, the past and present blending together.

“No,” said Becky. It was that “no” that became the lock on the door of a lie. One lie, two lies, three lies, and all truth lies ripped apart

It’s very clever, how all these people and threads interconnect, melding weird alien stuff with normal problems like Becky’s father eloping with her publisher whilst her mother breaks down and flies to India to consult a guru. Okay, maybe not normal problems, but closer to it. But whilst it’s clever, it’s also very complex and I couldn’t for the life of me keep everyone straight. I was constantly going “who the heck is Mark”, flipping forwards and backwards to the point where I had to write it down to remember.

Make no mistake, My Side of the Diamond is an excellent written and well-thought out book, it just wasn’t my kind of book. I wouldn’t have picked it up had I known it was going to feature aliens and conspiracy theories so heavily, or that it was going to be so odd. That’s the one word I would pick to describe this book: bizarre. This book is really weird and I did think it was brilliant, just not to my tastes.

My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an ARC of this book

It started a bit slow but soon picked up. I've never read a book like this, it was interesting. I found the book enjoyable and had me guessing. The ending was unexpected, but I think it was the perfect way to end the book.

This book is written as a series of interviews with people connected to the disappearance of Becky, primarily Jazmin but there are a few other characters along for the ride. It reads a lot like a YA contemporary novel with a bit of a science fiction twist. There is the feeling in the back of my mind that this book has and had the potential to be incredibly powerful and thought provoking, it just missed the mark in a couple of places.

For instance, there is no real doubt in the book that we’re supposed to believe Jazmin. She’s set up as a trustworthy narrator from page one. But would this not have been so much more powerful a novel if she wasn’t treated as trustworthy? If I read back some chapters without getting it in my head that she was telling the truth would it have been more engaging a story? Perhaps that’s what the author was trying to do, if so, it didn’t feel quite so effective as, for example, Elizabeth is Missing which is the most moving untrustworthy narrator I have ever read.

Maybe that’s the root of what stopped me from utterly loving this book. There’s the essence of a wonderful mystery here, why Becky is missing, why Icarus is important here but rather than hinting at things and leaving the reader to decide for themselves what is happening and how much of it could possibly be extraterrestrial, instead the story feels very spoon fed. That makes for very pleasant reading but I like to be challenged by books like these and I didn’t truly feel like I was.

There are some great elements to this book however, the plot, while at times a little unbelieveable, is certainly engaging and the writing itself is entertaining and well done. If you read more YA contemporary than I this might be more suited to your temperament but for me there was just something missing.

My rating: 3/5 stars

My Side of the Diamond releases on the fifth of October this year so get in your pre orders if you want to see what it’s all about.

By the way, I received a free digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

What I enjoyed:

Mystery / Sci Fi Elements - The whole premise of the novel is based on figuring out what happened to Becky, as well as other characters when they disappeared. All these cases have something in common however: they each jumped off a building and no bodies were ever found. This drew me in immediately as I enjoy a good mystery and it seemed that supernatural or Sci Fi elements were definitely involved so I was invested till the very end. I liked this unique mythology Gardner has created and a reworking of the Icarus legend.

Different Point of View - I always enjoy books which have sections told from the POV of different characters and Gardner made good use of this. It took me a while to get used to the characters and to establish who was 'speaking' in each section but by the end of the novel, I was accustomed to it jumping around and I think this non linear narrative was necessary for the mystery element.

What could have been improved:

Development of relationships: The two key relationships in the book: Between Jaz and Alex and Icarus and Becky, felt a little flat to me. Whilst I really wanted to root for the couples and get invested, I felt both were quite rushed and there was no build up. Perhaps with a lengthier novel, this build up could have been included but without it, I couldn't really enjoy the romantic element at all.

Disconnected from the characters: I didn't feel like I was attached to the characters very much, I felt for Jazmin at times and empathised with one of the characters when it came to their eating disorder but I didn't really love the characters as much as I would have liked to. They felt a little two dimensional to me, with little personality at times.

Pacing issues: I felt like a large portion of the book was wasted on non essential or 'filler' moments. I understand that Jaz, Becky and Alex were trying to figure out what was going on gradually, but the plot moved so slowly at times that I found myself a tad frustrated. I kept wishing for some action to further the plot, to come sooner rather than later.

Overall, the mystery element and finding out what really happened to Becky is what kept me reading more than any other element. It was a pretty original addition to the Teen Y/A genre and I appreciated that I hadn't read anything quite like it before.