Review Time: DISCONNECTED by Lisa M. Cronkhite

A Joint Review By: Destiny Geddis and Kaley Whittle

Disconnected by Lisa M. Cronkhite has an interesting premise, but unfortunately, the book did not end up as expected. While we found certain aspects of this book to be appealing, overall the entire YA Review Team (as we are forever now christened by Kaley Whittle) felt that these ideas and plots were not well executed within this story.

Something our group felt annoyed with (which is of no fault to Cronkhite) is with the immense spoiler on the back cover. When you read the first chapter, which is written so that you do not realize that Milly and Amelia are one, it can be a bit confusing. Why is this girl talking as if Amelia is another person? The back leads you to believe this is common knowledge going into the book, and spoils the eventual revelation of Milly's Split Personality Disorder.

One of the other issues our Team had with this book was the unbelievable-ness of Milly's character. As a group of teenagers, we thought that it just did not feel like Milly was one. It's hard to connect or sympathize with a character when all your doing is thinking, "that's not right."

On a more serious note, Milly self harmed. Often pressured by Amelia to do so, she cut her hands and wrists on multiple occasions. As a definite trait of Milly's character, we would like to be clear that it was not Milly's self-harm that made us so angry, but instead the author's presentation of this very real issue. Cronkhite showed an almost romanticized view on self harm, with Milly entering an almost dream-like trance every time she injured herself. With self-harm being such a prevalent issue in our society, especially within the YA age group, we felt that this portrayal could have been handled better.

There is another concern that one of our members expressed, but stating it would be a spoiler to the story, and this is a spoiler-free review. If you would like to know more, click that lovely little "Read More" button below. If not, consider this the end.

SPOILERS UNDER THIS GREY COVERING HERE. DO NOT HIGHLIGHT IF YOU WISH TO GO INTO THIS BOOK PURE. 

This is your last warning.

In the book, it revealed that Milly is actually the byproduct of her grandfather raping his daughter while intoxicated. Many scenes leading up to this seem to cast this man in an almost sympathetic light, which one of our members found deeply upsetting. Whether or not this was intentional, it was still very uncomfortable to read these sections after finding out the truth.