Ketchup Clouds by Annabelle Pitcher// Book Review

Zoe is guilty of a crime she cannot forgive herself for. Desperate to confide in someone, she gets in contact with an American prisoner on death row and tells him everything. These are the letters she wrote, straight from the heart...

I've been reading this book non-stop over the past four days and have not been able to put it down. The story line is truly gripping, making readers reluctant to stop reading as there is so much desperation towards finding out what crime Zoe actually did commit, as the letters take you through the build up to the crime, all the way through to the incident itself.
 I love how pitcher told the story, blending the present with the past in all the letters. She also wiped out all this mainstream 'girl next door' characteristic about Zoe, i.e. Zoe wasn't a 'normal girl whose world turned upside down', but a young woman who had been facing many personal problems in the build up to her 'crime'. Such as, a sister who mysteriously became deaf rather than being born deaf and the slow breakdown of her parents affection for one another. I really like how Pitcher did this, I'm always a sucker for a pyramid of tragedy and then something just ices the cake as it keeps the story flowing. The author of this book gave us a perfect dose of gradual upsets, neither too little or too much, climaxing into the big confession in Zoe's letters.
 The story itself also gives small, important lessons to teenagers. For example, throughout the story Zoe learns the harsh reality of relationships, the consequences of lying, the importance of trust whilst taking life into her own hands. She learns to follow her career aspirations, not her mother's or father's.

One of my favorite things about the story is how it shows the different ways people deal with grief. Some suffer more than others and deal with their emotions in their own time and way. It also shows the damage that can be caused when grief gets a bit too much for someone and how it can lead one to make rash decisions when dealing with these emotions, for example, *SPOILER ALERT* Sandra's descent into relying on alcohol.

The story was amazing. But the layout and sentence structures frustrated me. For example, paragraphs were split unnecessarily, there were no asterisks indicating a new scene. I also went through the book with my pen having to add commas where they were carelessly missed out, changing and altering sentences that didn't make sense. Now, I know this sounds pathetic but I find that when books have these kinds of mistakes, it breaks the flow of the story. So to continue and fix this 'flow', I feel the need to mark these errors with a pen (sad, I know).


All in all, I absolutely adored the story line and how many themes it got hold of. As well as a gripping story line, this novel has many important life lessons for teenagers as Zoe stumbles from relationships to grief. I thought this book was an extreme gut puncher, it really hit me hard in places, especially towards the end. I found the representation of teenage romance extremely accurate, such as the different types of boys a girl will come across, some going through girls like pants and others looking for someone to have that special bond with. The emotive language used to create these romantic images of the couples is just right, too. Nothing over the top or overly soppy. Just right for the kind of age Annabelle Pitcher is portraying the characters as (16-19) and for her target audience to read without wanting to heave.

3 Word Summary: Emotional, Gut-punching, Truthful 

Star Rating: ✮✮✮✮

Next book on reading list: If I Stay by Gayle Forman