The Split is a book in which very little happens and I thought it was kind of bad. My main issues are threefold: the main character, the pacing, and the fact that this book could have easily been 100 pages less. Firstly, I felt that Ally's personality was very inconsistent and messy throughout the story, she was given too many different tones and traits - it felt like when you mix lots of different cereals together and it ends up just tasting like sugar, not the individual flavours. After finishing the book I still have no idea how I would describe Ally or be able to picture how she sees the world. Her voice was bland and confusing and it was hard to stay engaged in the parts with less dialogue from the other characters. Secondly, I didn't like the way in which this story was paced. I read this book in a week and it felt like I had been reading it for 756 years. Aside from the first 10%, this book was so excruciatingly slow. Combined with the fact that nothing really happens and the character's voice is as compelling as a wooden spoon, it felt even slower. This brings me to my next point...the length (sort of). This book is 350 pages of Ally milling around. It's also 350 pages of almost every sentence being three times longer than necessary. At times it read like a uni essay that was orginally too short and edited to reach a higher word count. The dragging sentences and the unnecessary observations made by the MC made this book way too long than it needed to be. I think if this book was closer to 250 pages, it would have improved the pace and intrigue significantly. The things I liked about The Split are twofold: the dad, he reminded me of my dad. His character felt warm and I thought his dialogue was spot on. Also Malcolm. He was iconic. And secondly the portrayal of a wonderful queer found family, however brief it was. 1 star for Dad and cat, 1 star for lovely lesbians. Thank you ever so much to the publisher for this e-arc!

This book was not for me. I found it a very slow burn I think I am the wrong age group for the book. Saying that, the interaction between two of the main characters was very believable.