Solitaire

Solitaire Book Review by Alice Oseman 

I’ve loved every book I’ve ever read by Alice Oseman. Granted, that’s only been Loveless and Radio Silence, but both of those books were fantastic. I never read Oseman’s infinitely popular graphic novel series Hearstopper, but I did watch the first season on Netflix and really enjoyed that too. 

So going into Oseman’s book Solitaire, had me filled with high expectations and eager anticipation. Unfortunately those expectations and excitement dwindled to something I’ve never experienced with Oseman before: disappointment. 

Apparently, Alice Oseman wrote Solitaire when she was seventeen-years-old. I’m a little confused on the history, but I’m assuming she wrote Heartstopper first and then Solitaire as a follow-up side novel. Again, I didn’t look into the details. All I know is that she wrote this book twelve years ago, that it was her debut novel, and that it shows. 

Instead of focusing on Nick and Charlie, Solitaire focuses on Charlie’s sister, Victoria Spring. The best way I can describe Tori is that she is Wednesday Addams embodied, which is ironic seeing as Tori dresses up like Wednesday for Halloween in the novel (very on the nose, Alice). 

However, people seem to like Wednesday Addams’ despondent and cynical attitude (I don’t get it, for the record). I abhor Tori Spring. Maybe abhor is too strong of a word, but she was not a likable narrator. She’s pessimistic, apathetic, rude, judgmental, callous, and mean. 

Her whole schtick is that she thinks other people are “fake” and dislikes that people don’t act in the world, allowing the world to happen to them and only being bystanders to violence, hate, and toxicity. 

And yet…Tori does nothing? The entire novel? The person she supposedly hates the most describes the person Tori is herself. Which I guess is fitting because Tori seems to despise herself more than anyone.

You think as a reader that Tori will grow out of her depression by the end of the novel and come to some sort of understanding or epiphany. 

Spoiler alert: she doesn't. 

If anything, she spirals worse and worse, becoming increasingly sleep-deprived, paranoid, despondent, and obsessive. I get that Oseman wanted a more realistic portrayal of mental health perhaps, or maybe she didn’t think it was realistic for Tori to have a happy ending. 

However, she didn't really get any ending at all. 

Before I get to the conclusion of the story, I guess I should actually explain what the novel is about. 

Tori’s childhood best friend, Lucas, suddenly reappears in her life years later. Around the same time, mysterious pranks start occurring around Higgs, Tori’s school.

Harmless at first, the pranks pulled by the anonymous group Solitaire continuously grow in popularity and in danger, eventually leading to a boy getting beat up, Tori getting hurt by a firework exploding near her, and then, at the end of the novel, Higgs burning down. 

You might ask: why did the school burn down?

I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea. 

Apparently, Lucas was in charge of Solitaire and was doing it all to impress Tori and to bring some “joy” back into her life before the jokes spiraled out of control. However, Lucas comes to understand that Tori is no longer the girl he knew back in primary school and that she’s drastically changed. He did it because he was in “love” with her, but then admits at the end that he was more in love with the idea of her. 

Okayyyyyy. 

Then, for some inexplicable reason, other people are at Higgs at 5am, including one Michael Holden, Tori’s new fiend and resident “weirdo.”

The ending of the novel then churns out nonsense after nonsense. Tori and her ex-best friend Becky confront Solitaire and persuade them to not burn down the school. But then, inexplicably, Tori walks out of the room and a classroom is on fire. How? Why? I don’t know. 

I’m unsure if the insinuation is that Michael did it or if Lucas or Solitaire still managed to do it, but all I know is that I was confused. 

Instead of getting better it gets decidedly worse. 

Somehow, Tori thinks she’s going to put out a raging inferno with a single fire extinguisher and chooses now to act instead of evacating a burning building, is lead to believe that Michael is dead from the fire, and then decides to go up to the roof to contemplate suicide. 

Somehow, though, her brother Charlie, Nick, and some other people are outside telling her not to jump. Why are they out there? Some kind of reason.

Apparently Lucas tweeted about it or blogged about the fire so the whole student body is there at 5am to witness the school burning down and see Tori standing on the roof. 

But no fire trucks, police, or authority were there originally, because that would be too logical. 

Alas, Michael is not dead and shows up on the roof to tell Tori that she’s his best friend, they kiss out of left-field, and Tori is convinced not to kill herself. 

The novel ends with them driving to the hospital and with Tori realizing she’s not alone. 

….what? 

The ending was such a jumbled catastrophe that I don’t understand what really happened. It was too climactic and intense in a way that was completely at odds with the tone and plot of the story. You don’t get any kind of meaningful resolution with Tori other than realizing that she needs a lot of help and care. 

This book was a mess. 

Tori was unlikeable, has no discernible growth as a character, and other people weren incomprehensibly drawn to her and wanted to be friends with her, despite her flat out ignoring them, blowing them off, or being uncommunicative. 

The plot involving Solitaire was ridiculous and uninteresting, culminating in an ending that made no discernible sense and lacked purpose and logic. 

I know people love Heartstopper and Alice Oseman (myself included), but this book is not it. If they decided to publish this novel written twelve years ago simply because the show is popular and they said, “Hey, why not?” they chose wrong. 

I know publishers these days have the mentality of milking a series for all its worth, but this book didn’t add anything of substance, purpose, or heart. 

If anything, it detracts from the Heartstopper universe and makes me appreciate how much Oseman has grown as a writer. The Heartstopper universe is doing just fine on its own. It doesn't need side novels about Tori or about any other character. Leave it alone, please, I beg of you. 

Recommendation: Solitaire is a poor man’s crappy version of Catcher in the Rye—a book Alice Oseman herself mentions at the end of the novel, stating that none of her characters have read it. Well, they probably should have. It’s a much better story than Solitaire.

Score: 4/10