No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale

No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale

Publisher: Harper Teen      
Publication date: January 7th 2014
My rating: 5 stars

Small towns are nothing if not friendly. Friendship, Wisconsin (population: 688) is no different. Around here, everyone wears a smile. And no one ever locks their doors. Until, that is, high school sweetheart Ruth Fried is found murdered. Strung up like a scarecrow in the middle of a cornfield.
Unfortunately, Friendship’s police are more adept at looking for lost pets than catching killers. So Ruth’s best friend, Kippy Bushman, armed with only her tenacious Midwestern spirit and Ruth’s secret diary (which Ruth’s mother had asked her to read in order to redact any, you know, sex parts), sets out to find the murderer. But in a quiet town like Friendship—where no one is a suspect—anyone could be the killer.

No One Else Can Have You is one of the one of the biggest surprised of 2013.  There were so many negative reviews out there I seriously started reconsidering reading the book because let's face it. No one wants to waste time with a lousy book. 

If I'm being honest the first thing I noticed about this book is the cover. It's a a sweater with a hanged moose. I've never seen anything like it and I even showed it to my mom since she's good at knitting. Fingers crossed I get a moose sweater. Sweaters are one of my favorite clothing items. My dad can confirm that since I steal most of his jumpers. Anyway, whoever designed this eye-catching cover deserves a raise. 

I have to say the author did a great job at depicting every single character. Kippy, our heroine who didn't give up on her dead best friend,  Ruth even though she said a lot of hurtful things about Kippy in her diary. She justified it as unloading all the negative energy into the diary because Ruth couldn't share everything with her loved ones. Kippy is a strange girl and has a really unique voice and I liked her from the start. Kippy's, gentle and overprotective dad was also rather peculiar. I could go on forever about all the people in Friendship, but I won't.

 No One Else Can Have You was a character-driven book and I prefer those to a lot of action. I know some people found it incredibly boring but I loved every quirk and flaw these characters had. Isn't it so much better when you can really see and understand everyone instead of going through the motion? It's what kept my attention right from the start. If you general prefer weird books I'm sure you'll find something interesting in No One Else Can Have You.