Splinters by Rachel Delahaye

Title: Splinters

Author: Rachel Delahaye

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Scholastic Australia

Published: 1^st March 2025

Format: Paperback

Pages: 320

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Jean Sylvester’s life is falling apart. Friendships, family, love-it’s all drama and none of it good. On top of that, she’s moving into a house she hates. But something Jean discovers there encourages her to reflect on how life could be better. Only the more she looks for a happy ending, the more she loses sight of who she is, and finding her way back will take one more electrifying drama. If it’s not too late.

~*~

Jean Sylvester is fifteen, and about to have her life turned upside down. Her best friend has gone to live in Scotland, there are ongoing dramas at school, and her family is moving into an old house that her sort of boyfriend Leon desperately wants to get into because of a mirror. Jean is feeling like everyone is expecting her to just be okay with it, especially as she watches her younger sister get away with everything, and everyone around her falls away. Whilst moving into her new room – the attic – she discovers a mirror that reflects versions of herself, and shows her how life can be – if she’s willing to make changes.

This young adult thriller about trying to find a happy ending shows that sometimes, you just need to find the happiness and joy in your life, that even if somebody else’s life looks better. It examines friendship and teen angst in a genuine way, because everyone feels what Jean is feeling at some point, and we all feel it or experience it in different ways. Life is full of events and interruptions that make us question what we are doing, where we are going and who we truly are. But this book ramps it up with the messy emotions that teenagers have as they come to terms with so many changes in their lives, or are trying to cope with things that they can’t control. And Jean is trying to find a way to cope, a way to change things.

She makes friends with Alice, but every life she enters has its own challenges, and the novel slowly bubbles along, building tension as Leon and Jean argue over the mirror. At home, she’s grappling with a father who has secrets that could tear the family apart, a mother who is more concerned about her sister, and that same sister being annoying at the best of times – at least, she is to Jean. This all comes together as everything goes in and out of Jean’s journey to find happiness, leading to a tragedy that it seems there is no coming back from, it can’t change, and time cannot be reversed.

As much of the novel builds up to the tragedy and Jean’s desire to escape, the tension is always there. There’s a sense throughout the novel that something bad is going to happen to someone Jean knows. It ensures that the reader is constantly on their toes, waiting for something to happen – because it is the kind of novel where you know it will. But it is no less shocking when it does happen. Whilst it has many tropes and elements a lot of thrillers and young adult novels have, it deftly handles them with care and an ability to make the book addictive, something that you need to keep reading to find out what happens. Because there are so many things that could go wrong, so many ways things can turn out, as a reader, I never knew what to expect. It meant that the thriller aspect of this book worked well, and will hopefully keep other readers engaged with what is going on in Jean’s life.

This is a clever young adult novel that explores identity and how it can be fractured for people, and what happens when we stretch ourselves too thin, trying to please everyone and be what everyone expects. I found this novel to be compelling and hope others do as well.