Things We Have in Common

by Tasha Kavanagh

Overview

A dark, utterly compulsive novel about what happens when the warped imagination of a teenage girl turns into reality…

When fifteen-year-old Yasmin—obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers—sees a sinister man watching Alice Taylor from the school fence, she becomes convinced he’s planning to take her. After all, who wouldn’t want the popular and perfect Alice?

Then Yasmin realizes if she can find out who he is before he acts, she’ll be the only one who can tell the police, save Alice and become Alice’s heroine. But as Yasmin discovers more about this man, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn’t need Alice after all…

And then Alice vanishes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780778330332
Publisher:	Park Row Books
Publication date:	01/30/2018
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Tasha Kavanagh has an MA in Creative Writing and has worked as an editor on feature films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Twelve Monkeys and Seven Years in Tibet. Her first adult novel is Things We Have in Common and it was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction. She lives in Hertfordshire with her family and three cats.

Editorial Reviews

"[A] perfectly orchestrated girl-who cried-wolf thriller.... Kavanagh's second-person narration ... reveals the very thin line that separates garden-variety teenage agita from dangerous delusion.... [T]he artfulness with which [Kavanagh] deceives and manipulates is so downright creepy that one periodically finds oneself in the discomfiting posture of cheering on the bullies and the mean girls."-The New York Times Book Review

"[W]ildly clever...spectacular...The conclusion underscore[s] the author's searing insight into teenage behavior and the desperation for connection."-Publishers Weekly

"An unreliable narrator in the most intriguing way.... A quick, thoroughly enjoyable read."-Booklist

"A tale of loneliness and teenage obsession which could be the next Gone Girl success story."-Independent (UK)

"A brilliantly twisted coming-of-age tale... The story chillingly, compulsively unravels."-Sunday Express

"A striking and highly enjoyable debut."-Sophie Hannah, New York Times bestselling author

"Tasha Kavanagh's Yasmin is as complex and believable a narrator as you will find. Her honesty drives the novel to its unflinching, brilliant conclusion and is why Things We Have in Common is so disturbing...so impossible to set aside." -Travis Mulhauser, author of Sweetgirl

"With a dark and suspenseful plot that keeps the reader guessing until the final pages, Things We Have in Common is an assured debut narrated by an alarming and original voice." -The Irish Times

"Kavanagh does orchestrate some successful plot twists that are reminiscent of other psychological thrillers-classics by Ruth Rendell, for example, or more recent hits like Gone Girl."-Kirkus Reviews

"A pitch-black comedy thriller."-The Guardian

From the Publisher

…[a] perfectly orchestrated girl-who-cried-wolf thriller…Kavanagh's second-person narration gives voice to Yasmin's tumultuous inner life. The beauty of this confessional technique is the way it reveals the very thin line that separates garden-variety teenage agita from dangerous delusion.

The New York Times Book Review - Jan Stuart

10/31/2016
Yasmin is an overweight 15-year-old with no friends, missing her dad who died five years ago, stuck living with her mom and her loser judgmental stepfather, Gary, in a nondescript U.K. suburb, and obsessed with Alice Taylor, one of the popular girls in her class who barely gives her the time of day. But from the get-go, the wildly clever Kavanagh, in her spectacular adult-novel debut, launches a new obsession for Yasmin: a strange man standing at the edge of the school property who appears to be as drawn to Alice as she is. Yasmin is certain he is going to kidnap Alice (she even Googles “how to spot a pedophile”), and that notion inspires a series of fantasies in which Yasmin heroically saves Alice and they become best friends forever. The canny Yasmin insinuates herself into the stalker’s life so that she can identify him to the police if he goes through with the horrible deed. Things get complicated when he turns out to be the first person in her adolescent life who doesn’t mock her or treat her with disdain, and they get even more complicated when Alice actually disappears, and Yasmin’s stepfather is a suspect. The ensuing events and the stunning conclusion underscore the author’s searing insight into teenage behavior and the desperation for connection. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

11/15/2016
Fifteen-year-old Yasmin is a major misfit: overweight, depressed, and shunned by her classmates. With her father dead and her mother remarried, Yasmin is uncomfortable in her own skin and feels like a visitor in her own home. One day she happens upon a man creepily watching popular girl Alice, the same classmate whom Yasmin has a crush on. She decides to befriend this stranger in the hopes of keeping him from harming Alice, with Yasmin becoming Alice's hero and friend as a result. But upon her initial meeting with awkward loner Samuel, Yasmin immediately recognizes a kindred spirit. This leads to her pursuing a friendship with him, to the point of forgetting her unspoken role as Alice's protector. Then Alice goes missing. While Kavanagh realistically portrays the misguided thoughts and actions of a troubled teen, her protagonist is an unreliable, selfish narrator who elicits no sympathy in the reader. VERDICT Touted as an adult thriller, this slow-moving debut definitely feels more YA. Despite its weaknesses, it is a surprisingly compulsory, if unpleasant, read. [See Prepub Alert, 7/18/16.]—Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD

Library Journal

06/01/2017
Published in Great Britain in 2015, this suspense novel will surprise readers. Yasmin, a depressed 15-year-old, is still recovering from her father's death years ago while obsessing over Alice, her school's "it" girl. Yasmin is bullied by classmates and teachers, but her mom and stepfather are more concerned with getting her to lose weight than with her mental health. When Yasmin notices a man who "only [has] eyes for Alice," she, too, becomes determined to stalk Alice in order to protect her and be seen as a hero. Yasmin is an unreliable first-person narrator who lives in a fantasy world; periodically, she addresses the stalker through second-person narration. Readers will find themselves thoroughly confused and questioning what's actually happening until they reach the last sentence. The anticipation and tension that mount as Alice disappears are exhausting—who kidnapped Alice? Is Yasmin involved, or is she a victim? VERDICT Like E. Lockhart's We Were Liars, this title will have its champions. Whether teens love it or hate it, it will nevertheless spark discussion and elicit strong feelings. Purchase where twisted reads are popular.—Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL

School Library Journal

2016-10-05
A teenage outcast imagines what would happen if one of her classmates was abducted only to deal with confusing consequences when fantasy becomes reality in Kavanagh’s debut novel.Catching a glimpse of a man across from her school one afternoon, Yasmin—lonely and overweight—constructs an imaginative abduction scenario. She assumes that, if he were indeed a murderer/pedophile, he would have his eyes on Alice, the most beautiful and popular girl in Yasmin’s class. Yasmin herself has a crush on Alice, and she's been keeping a box of souvenirs that represent times that their paths have inadvertently crossed—a lost sock, a piece of snack wrapper left behind, a heart sketched on a slip of paper. Over the next several weeks, as she navigates a hostile school environment as well as her mother's and stepfather’s disappointment that she won’t keep to her diet, Yasmin begins to follow the man in question and even makes contact with him, drawn by his kindness toward her in return. When Alice really does go missing one evening, Yasmin has to decide whether she should go to the police—or has she completely misconstrued the situation? It’s hard to be in Yasmin’s head sometimes; she is such a severely unhappy character that it makes for uncomfortable reading in the first-person. It’s even hard to feel too much empathy for her, despite her history of loss, because she seems so bent on ignoring social cues as well as common sense. But Kavanagh does orchestrate some successful plot twists that are reminiscent of other psychological thrillers—classics by Ruth Rendell, for example, or more recent hits like Gone Girl. If you can stick with Yasmin until the end, the twists and turns are worth it.

Kirkus Reviews