Splinters by Rachel Delahaye
When you look in the mirror, who looks back?
Jean Sylvester is a typical, over-thinking adolescent who is convinced that life isn’t fair and who wishes that hers were different.
However, a painful experience with parallel realities will ultimately teach Jean one of the key tenets of adult life: while life involves her, it’s not always all about her.
Jean’s challenges intensify when she witnesses a traumatic accident and can’t help but blame herself for the events leading up to it. In order to be free of the nightmare, Jean faces a choice: she can either spiral into despair or seek to reconcile herself with the fact that terrible things happen, and some of those things can’t be changed – or can they?
3 Comments
Bella yr 10 St Paul’s
27th September 2025 at 4:27 pmThis book was an awful lot better than I thought it would be and has definitely made me rethink my views on the dystopian genre as a whole. Splinters really, emotionally, threw me around. At parts near the end I was on the verge of tears, others I was so mad at the characters (mainly Jean) and their choices and at some bits it made me genuinely smile. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot and thought the idea of a mirror which shows you other versions of yourself was really unique. The character development of Jean was really well written I found, as at the beginning she was shy and kept to herself and best friend whereas by the end she was quite frankly mean, whether she meant to be or not. I don’t like how she turned cruel but also felt bad for her due to the sheer amount of bad things that she had to or still was dealing with. I loved seeing the relationships build and fall between Jean and her family and friends and it was shown perfectly and realistically. On the whole this book was amazingly written and makes you really feel like you are in the story itself!
Josh
25th September 2025 at 7:45 pmI really enjoyed readying Splinters, usually I struggle to get engaged with books but I really got stuck in with this book. Splinters is a fantasy/thriller novel, with lots of drama and many plot twists throughout the book – it was a very fun read. I loved the character development in this book, the way you could see the characters changing from chapter to chapter was very interesting. The comedy in this book was not really my type though, in some ways I considered it quite cringy and it made me feel a bit awkward. I really enjoyed Jean exploring laughing Jeans life and seeing how different the characters were for her instead of how we thought of them. The magic mirror mixed in with the drama of her normal life made for an amazing read. Overall a really great book and would definitely recommend to someone else.
Norah Yr8
18th September 2025 at 3:07 pmI really enjoyed this book. The way Jean was mixed up with her own life and others was truly captivating, as well as her splintering love life with Leon. I felt like the author was able to show the real life drama of school break through this book. My favourite version of Jean had to be the one with the jungles on her walls, she kind of reminded me of Jodie in a way, with her colourful personality and room. Not only did it make me stay up all night, it also changed my view on the whole dystopian genre.