The Colours We See - A Review
- Chaos In Pages
- May 29, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 15, 2021
Written by: Kaisa Winter
Published: December 2020
Format: e-ARC
Source: Book Sirens
Length: 356 Pages
Publisher: Self Published
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult, Mental Health, New Adult.
My Precise Rating: 4.3 stars! (You should definitely check this out!)
“The road must eventually lead to the whole world”
SYNOPSIS
A LOST GIRL.
Hazel lands in America with nothing but a backpack, a craving for adventure, and a past she would rather forget. She is eager to live life as she always imagined it – free, wild, unpredictable.
A TROUBLED MUSICIAN.
When brilliant but aloof singer-songwriter Liam invites her to join his band as they tour all over the States, she doesn’t have to think twice. Suddenly she’s traveling, performing, and falling hard for this talented, complicated boy. But when things begin to spiral out of control, Hazel realizes that no matter how hard she tries, she can’t outrun herself.
THE ROAD TRIP OF A LIFETIME.
THE COLOURS WE SEE is an under-the-skin love story brimming with music, art, parties, and heartbreak. How far can we go to escape ourselves before it’s too late to turn back?
MY REVIEW
*Thanks to BookSirens and the publisher for kindly providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated here are my own and in no way influenced by the publisher, author, or third party.
This is a spoiler-free review and stick till the end of this to read the spoiler review. With that being said, let's dive in.
the colors I hear - the beautiful nothing we see
When I heard that the book entitled “The Colours We See by Kaisa Winter” is the pick for the month ‘May’ in our book club I was so excited to read it and you can tell how rejoiced I am and also this book was given to me by BookSirens in exchange for an honest review, so I guess it has been written in my destiny to read this book.
Yeah well suffice it to say Hazel is an artist and Liam is a singer-songwriter, and when I’m reading the book the scenes are so palpable it was like I am in a world of wonder, and when I am done with the book I was so devoid of everything.
Then I set myself to create this thing,...
In the first panel, you can see me in serenity but actually, I’m not calm, I’m everything but of lacking spectacle,
In the second panel, well anyone can tell that I started playing some songs on my mobile(of course it is mobile)
In the last panel, the songs brought hope back into my world, cleansing the white noises and reducing the black echoes making it colorful again.
The story follows Hazel, a British girl who comes to America to escape her toxic, overbearing, mentally unstable, and manipulative mother and find her path in life. There she meets Liam, a tortured rock star who invites her on tour with his band, Object Impermanence. When push comes to shove, will Hazel continue running or will she turn around and face her problems head-on?
The following contains spoilers for the story!
WHAT I LIKED IN THE BOOK
This is one of the narratives which has all of the things I want in a book, like it has realism, adventure, a bit fantasy, like common who get to get invited with a band so popular and get to fall in love with a person like Liam in just a couple of days, at first this seemed (for me) like a dream, but soon it turned into “real world” events which I liked the most.
The writing
Did I hear someone mention this is Kaisa Winter’s debut novel? *insert surprised Pikachu face* Kaisa had done a tremendous job on depiction where she set almost all scenes quite palpably.
The writing did help me read the whole book and quite possibly made me love it.
The characters
Who would turn down the 'artsy girl who meets a dark, brooding tortured boy and tries to fix him' trope? Not me!
Ivy, the other girl within the story is, of course, viewed as competition.
Lawson.
The Character Arc's of Hazel and Ivy, respectively.
The setting
While on-road, Hazel enters a rocky relationship with Liam, gets the opportunity to reflect on her childhood from a safe distance, and rediscovers the true meaning of being an artist - until a series of fateful events show her exactly how fickle life is.
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE IN THE BOOK
As I mentioned earlier this is the narrative that I liked the most but just as every coin has a flip side, this book also has its “flip sides”
The writing
Even at times, the words hooked me to read on, I didn’t care enough for the characters just to know how does this end, which I think is the heart of any book, and also I didn’t get to invest enough to continue past the first eight to nine chapters, but again after the first main event, I got invested to continue.
The characters
This book has all characters with a unique background, trying to fit into this world of Hazel either as an ally or a competition or simply present to add some drama.
So many characters with little awareness about them.
Neither Hazel nor Liam made any kind of impression on me; I could not bring myself to worry for his or her struggles nor their relationship. The only character I genuinely liked - besides Ivy - was Lawson. He appeared like such a pleasant, easygoing, sweet guy. He deserved better!
The events (this is just my viewpoint!) high spoilers
Maybe this isn’t what Kaisa intended. But for me, a couple of chapters before and after Frank’s death seemed kinda out of place if that makes sense, even though this period made our main characters know each other better and even made Liam open up a little to Hazel which he didn’t to anyone except maybe to Lawson, which is kinda important for any relation but for me it felt like the death only happened just to unite our lovers.
I gave this a pass as this is not what everybody experiences and also this is her first novel and I really really liked this book. We have a saying like ‘flaws are what made you special.’
To sum it up, I think even though this is a debut novel, even though YA is not my preferred genre this narrative gave me a whole lot of fresh take on YA and New Adult, it’s almost like this book made a difference, this book made me want to dive into regular fiction.
Trigger warnings: The book touches on suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, toxic parents, and death.
Preview of "The Colours We See" from Amazon India.
I love your elaborated review. I have to say that for me the relationship between Hazel and Liam didn't matter much. As much as I wanted to believe that relationship to be love, I couldn't. And the ending *big* event might be surprising, but it didn't hit me that much.