Nobody but Us

By Kristin Halbrook

Will

Maybe I'm too late. Maybe Zoe's dad stole all her fifteen years and taught her to be scared. I'll undo it. Help her learn to be strong again, and brave. Not that I'm any kind of example, but we can learn together.

When the whole world is after you, sometimes it seems like you can't run fast enough.

Zoe

Maybe it'll take Will years to come to terms with being abandoned. Maybe it'll take forever. I'll stay with him no matter how long it takes to prove that people don't always leave, don't always give up on you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Release date: Jan 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9780062121271

Kristin Halbrook

Kristin halbrook is the author of Nobody But Us. When she isn't appeasing her sense of wanderlust, she lives in Seattle, where gray skies and good coffee make ideal writing conditions, and where fine company is provided by her husband and a gaggle of pixies.

Reviews for Nobody but Us

[kazhout · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

(This review was originally posted at My Library in the Making.)I can't think of any other way to start this review but to say this: Nobody But Us broke my heart. Like the case in Flawed by Kate Avelynn, I kept thinking "if only they had good parents...", and having that in mind just made it more heartbreaking.Will, who was abandoned by his mom at a young age, and Zoe, who grew up with her abusive father, found each other and decided to run away to build the life they'd always dreamed of. Being teens who had to endure hard lives, I expected them to be realistic and they were, to a point, but unfortunately they were more naive. Like Zoe realized near the end, I think they mistook the want to save each other for love, but I didn't really care because it was beautiful to see that grow into real love with every smile, every touch, every kiss. Their relationship wasn't the only thing that grew, though, because along the way, they urged each other to grow, either by getting over their past or facing it. Sadly, after the initial good came the bad. Will sunk deeper into his hopelessness - which was believable - but Zoe's speedy change to a rash person totally surprised me.Because the book was written in both Will and Zoe's POVs, I truly felt and understood their worries, uncertainties, and the thrill of finally being free for the first time in their lives, however short-lived the prospect was. Will's double negatives irked me, but it really helped in figuring out who was talking and also to give him more individuality.Due to the characters' circumstances, I knew I shouldn't expect a happy-ever-after, but damn, that ending was worse than I'd guessed. I'll stop here before I say something spoiler-y, but believe me when I say that I really loved this book and that I'll pick it up again when I feel like getting depressed.MY FAVORITE PART was when Will and Zoe were in the woods.

[tripsis_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

BookNook — Young Adult book reviewsWhat I took away from this book is that it's less about the romance and more about young kids making bad decisions and learning about the consequences. If you want to be able to appreciate the romance in this story, I think you have to be a younger reader. As a 21-year-old, I couldn't help but roll my eyes a little at the romance (but maybe that was the point? I'm not really sure). This couple is very young—15 and 18—and they're on the run together. They've been dating for two months and are already "in love" when the book begins. Will tells Zoe that she means the world to him, Zoe tells Will that he is everything to her, they want to get married and talk about having kids, etc. It's a very "foolish young love" situation. It's kind of sweet, but is a little over the top and not very realistic (the romance itself is realistic, because I know young kids do that, but the idea that they can be so young and live together forever and love each other forever is unrealistic, and kids have that unrealistic idea all the time).So Will and Zoe escape from their lives together (Zoe running from an abuse father, and Will just running away from a bad past), and it starts out feeling like freedom, but bad choice after bad choice causes them to end up running from the police, from the FBI, and watching their backs at every turn. Slowly, Zoe begins to realize that running away has become more of a destructive nightmare than a salvation.I think it was tough for me to connect to the romance for two reasons. First, they were already in love when the story starts. I think I prefer books where we see the process of falling in love. That allows me to get more emotionally invested in the relationship, since I've been with it from its inception. But jumping right into the middle of a romance is tougher. And secondly, I'm not 15 anymore so it's hard for me to remember what it was like when I thought my first love was so amazing and perfect and that I'd be with him forever. I know I probably felt like Zoe at some point—that I had the best guy in the world (despite obvious problems, which I ignored), and that we were so in love and were going to get married. But I'm 21 now and I just look back and remember an idiot. So I couldn't help but view Zoe and Will's relationship in the same light. But I think 15-year-olds who are actually in that same stage of life might be able to relate to the romance and enjoy it more.I did enjoy the second half of the book more than the first half. The first half had more of the fluffly lovey dovey stuff, but the second half was more about facing demons from the past and coming to terms with reality. I finally started to enjoy it more when the harsh realities set in and when Zoe got her act together a bit. She does become a much stronger character towards the end and gained some sense.There was one thing that I wish was explored more in the book: when Zoe draws a connection to her first love and her mom's first love. I thought this was a pretty awesome point in the story, but I didn't see much development with it.[My mom] married the first man who promised to take care of her.He sure did.I look at Will. His face is a study in concentration as he grips the steering wheel, but I don't think he's focused on his driving. I can only imagine the thoughts running through his mind. He must be so afraid, so angry, so frustrated. He helped me walk away from my dad, from blame, from being like the woman who wouldn't, wouldn't, survive, not even for me.He's the first to promise to take care of me.—ARC of Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook, Page 247 Zoe's mother married her father because he was the first man who promised to take care of her. But Zoe's father physically abused her mom (and then Zoe herself). Then Zoe realizes that Will is the first man to promise to take care of her. This was an interesting comparison because her relationship with Will is unhealthy. They have a big age difference (3 years isn't that much, but it is when you're 15), they're running away together, Will has a history of violence, he swears to protect her but he also beats up people and scares her.. I just wish we saw more about this connection. Or more like, I wish Zoe saw more from it. I could certainly draw the comparisons myself, but I feel like Zoe could have drawn more similarities herself. I don't think she ever fully saw how unhealthy her relationship with Will was.Overall, my enjoyment of this book wasn't through the roof, but I did like how things came together at the end. It wasn't particularly a happy ending, but I do think Zoe learned some important lessons. I can also see how a younger audience might enjoy this book more than I did, which is why I'm giving it the rating I am. I think there is some potential here, I just wasn't the perfect audience for it. :)

[neha · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

nice

[a_reader_of_fictions · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

To be entirely fair, I was not sure if this book would be my thing. The teens on the run aspect didn't really appeal to me, but Nobody But Us was blurbed by two of my favorite authors (Courtney Summers and Kody Keplinger), as well as being compared to If I Stay by Gayle Forman, which I loved. I thought perhaps instead of being melodramatic, Nobody But Us might have the contemplative, deep, emotionally fraught style of If I Stay. Well, I've been wrong before. I really need to stop buying into this marketing that sells you one book by comparing it to another.

Starting with the good, Halbrook writes well, creating two different voices for Zoe and Will. They think differently and have wholly different vocabulary. Multiple points of view in first person are tricky, so I applaud her for doing that this well. The writing's a bit simpler than I personally tend to prefer, and includes the occasional odd word choice, like "vessel" to refer to a car, though that seems like something that my be caught before publication.

I would like to propose changing the tagline to "They're young. They're stupid. They're on the run." That pretty much sums up this book for me. Will, eighteen and finally free of the system where he's bounced from home to home and school to school, decides to take his girlfriend Zoe with him away from their shit-hole hometown and her abusive father. Fifteen-year-old Zoe needs a change, no doubt about that. Her father is a drunken monster, and should be in jail, but that does not mean that running away with Will is an awesome plan. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite of an awesome plan.

Still, teens don't necessarily have much wisdom about the way of the world and everything can seem very immediate. They're young and this seems like the best road open to them, so that's what they do. Fine. I will accept that. However, what I have trouble handling is how incredibly stupid they are about everything once they're on the road. How can neither of them ever have seen a crime drama, which would have kept them from doing a lot of the idiotic things they do?

Zoe's choices can be put down to a youthful naivete, I suppose, and a weakness of character that causes her to cling to the first person to offer to take care of her. Will, however, has a better idea of the law, having come up against it before. He knows enough to get her a fake ID that lists her age as eighteen, though they never actually use this once, and to expect that the cops will be looking for them. Yet, somehow, he expects that they will simply be able to disappear in Las Vegas with just her fake ID, where she can enroll in school and they can live together. Really? You KNOW they'll be looking for you, Will, but it doesn't occur to you that you would need a fake identity too? Or that an IDENTITY is more than a doctored license? How are you going to enroll her in school or do anything without records? What about your social security numbers? Birth certificates? Disappearing is not so easy in the modern age, especially when people know your car.

"Christina, stop being so judgmental of them for not knowing all of this stuff; I mean, they're just teens!" Maybe so, imaginary devil's advocate. Some teens might not know those things, so let's give them a pass on that, okay? Shouldn't they at least be bright enough not to draw attention to themselves as they make their escape? Will, especially, since Zoe seems to have no clue what's going on? Yet, every time they stop, they do something incredibly, mind-blowingly stupid. Being a teenager does not necessitate a complete lack of survival skills or self-awareness.

Here are some examples of how Zoe and Will continually do precisely the worst possible thing in every situation:
1. While eating at a diner, some cops come in for food. The teens freak out and basically make it very obvious that they're hiding something as they leave as quickly as they can. At least they don't skip out on the check, making this the high point in their intelligence.
2. Will spots a vehicle behind them on the highway that he believes might be a cop car, so he starts driving as fast as he can. Because the best thing to do when guilty and near cops is to make yourself guilty of something else so that they'll be sure to notice you. Yup. Great idea.
3. They stop at a gas station. Zoe goes in to get food while Will pumps gas. Some assholes start talking to Zoe and one touches her on the ass. Will punches him.
4. Zoe gets her period and, worried about Will's limited finances, decides they cannot afford the $12 box of tampons (Seriously, why are tampons so expensive? I have wondered this before myself.) and decides the best plan is to steal some from the box.
5. When Zoe gets caught stealing tampons and shaken by the irate store owner, Will hits him over the head with a bottle of wine.
6. When Will sees a news broadcast reporting the incident, he and Zoe run out of the dining establishment so fast they leave his wallet behind, causing the waitress and everyone else to look closely enough at them to put two and two together.
7. The list really does go on, but I think you've got the point.

Will and Zoe's relationship also made me seriously uncomfortable. Yet again, we have a girl in love with a guy she's afraid of a good deal of the time, and we're meant to see them as tragic, romantic figures. No, I don't think so. Zoe, physically abused by her father, is terrified every time Will gets into a fight on her behalf. The formula repeated over and over in this book: someone threatens or hits on Zoe, he punches the person, Zoe cries and shrinks away from him, he promises he'll never hurt her and that he'll keep his rage checked, repeat.

Worse, I have no doubt that, given time, he would end up hitting Zoe. Their interactions had warning bells chiming in my head all the way through. He thinks constantly about how much he wants to make her happy, but snaps at her any time she annoys him. He swears at her, even though he knows how much that upsets her. After some guys hit on her, he accuses her of flirting with them, blaming her, though she was only a victim of their rude behavior. When he does things like this, she accuses herself for his unhappiness, for their bad situation, even though she's clearly not at fault for any of it. Their relationship is incredibly unhealthy and I don't feel like Halbrook made her stance on that as a bad thing clear at all.

What I wanted and expected was an emotionally hard-hitting novel about the horrors of abuse, but instead I found a melodramatic mess that romanticizes what I see as an abusive relationship. The whole thing read like a Lifetime original movie. I imagine many people will enjoy this, given how popular books with similar themes have been recently, but I did not.

[darkfaerietales_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales.Quick & Dirty: A heartbreaking story about a couple who find love despite their broken pasts.Opening Sentence: He comes down the road in his Camaro sliding left to right on the freshly oiled gravel and skidding to a stop in front of my house.The Review:Nobody But Us by Kristin Halbrook stands out from a lot of contemporary fiction for young adults. Sometimes a book will talk about a realistic scenario and I wouldn’t be able to connect to it. Or that the main character will be written in a way that I wouldn’t be able to relate. But that isn’t the case for Halbrook’s Nobody But Us. I felt that there were emotions that were so raw, I couldn’t help but feel them.Will and Zoe had different lives growing up. Both of their childhood experiences weren’t the best, by any means. Will has moved from foster home to foster home. He never fit in with a family, letting his anger get the best of him. Zoe lives in a home of domestic abuse. Only being fifteen, she has met her father’s alcohol-induced anger with a less than loving hand. No one around her has ever spoken up for her, and it didn’t look like anyone ever will. Except when Will meets Zoe and notices a hidden bruise. He vows to take her away from her father. And if that means running away without looking back, so be it.Will’s voice is from one extreme to another. He has intense emotions for Zoe, loving her as hard as he can. But on the other side, he is also keeping a lot of anger inside of him. Maybe it was due to never having an outlet to let those feelings out. Maybe it’s the nature of his upbringing. But regardless of what it is, he loves hard and falls hard. For me, I didn’t connect to Will as easily as I would have wanted. His character was a little too shielded for me, even if his inner thoughts revealed a lot about him. I wanted to love him and I thought he was swoony enough, but in the end he just wasn’t for me.Zoe is very young at fifteen. It is evident by her life choices and how she is easily swayed by a boy. Zoe is closed off as much as a young girl can get, with an exception of a close friend or two. I had a difficult time connecting to Zoe. I couldn’t easily place myself in her shoes and walk the fine line of her life. I yearned for her, but that was as far as my emotions got towards her. She was naive when it came to Will, and I felt that it was a little hard to believe since she dealt with her dad for so long. But this is my, and my opinion. I couldn’t place myself in her shoes but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t realistic.Told in a dual point-of-view, the chapters alternate between the voices of Zoe and Will. It was interesting to see the differences in their thoughts and feelings in Nobody But Us. Seeing the same scene through both of their eyes allowed me to see the complete story. They were in this car for so long, driving to where they needed to go, and to see that journey was great. The world is realistic enough for me to live and believe it. I was transported into where Zoe and Will were, looking behind my shoulder one moment and living blissfully ignorant the next.I feel that a lot of Will’s and Zoe’s choices and actions were borderline unrealistic in Nobody But Us. Let me explain myself a little more clearly. I think they were realistic enough, but the pacing and time sequence of how things happened were a little too fast for me. The pacing was nice and steady in the first half of the book. And then there was this turning point where everything sped by so fast. I felt that the last half was rushed, but it was understandable. I understood why it had to happen.There are a lot of raw emotions spoken throughout Nobody But Us. There are a lot of serious topics, some a little uncomfortable to read about more so than the next. But I enjoyed Nobody But Us and I think you will also.Notable Scene:“I know you won’t. It wasn’t that. Not really. But . . . you have to understand, Will, I . . . I see him when you’re like that, is all. My dad. Will, you were so angry.”She says it like she’s the one who’s got to say sorry, like she did anything wrong at all. I close my eyes, shut out the road, tell her that I ain’t her dad, that I won’t never treat her like that.That I’m sorry.This anger-person: he needs to go away before I destroy us both.FTC Advisory: HarperTeen provided me with a copy of Nobody But Us. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.

[yearningtoread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nobody But Us by Kristin HalbrookPages: 272Release Date: January 29th, 2013Date Read: 2013, January 5th-7thReceived: ARC via publisherRating: 4/5 starsRecommended to: 16+SUMMARY -Will and Zoe are in love.They are running away together.They're telling no one of their plans.When they make it to Vegas and blend into the crowd, they'll go to school and work hard to build a life together.They'll get married and have a house and careers.That is...if they make it there.MY THOUGHTS -The firs thing that pops into my head is that I love Kristin Halbrook's writing. She's a debut, and is absolutely fantastic at what she does! She is definitely a God-gifted word-weaver!I've been wanting an ARC of this book ever since I heard about it. The premise is amazing - and I love stories that are "based" off of or "related to" other stories.Well, did it live up to the hype I gave it? Not like I was hoping. But it was definitely worth my time, for other reasons.CHARACTER NOTES -Through the whole book, there are mostly only 2 characters: Zoe and Will. Just them. Traveling.Honestly, that could have been excessively boring. But it wasn't, because their relationship is so dynamic, so real and gritty and beautiful and strange. They were fast to get out of their old lives together, and they were so in love and happy to be together.I honestly can't write much about how they were when they were apart, or didn't know each other, etc. There wasn't much to it. Zoe was pushed, shoved, beat, and forced to watch a horrible thing happen to her mother. Will was abandoned and passed between foster homes. He wants differently for Zoe. He wants change.But that's about it. And I learned most of this within a few chapters; sure, things popped up later on that were surprising. But not about character - about story. So together, Zoe and Will were a well-developed couple and really fascinating and dimensional. Apart, not as much as I'd hoped. Still, very enjoyable to read about.STORY NOTES -The story here is unusual, beautiful, and full of suspense and danger. However, I did have an issue with it, based on what the blurb said. "Bonnie and Clyde meets If I Stay"... Well, if I know anything about Bonnie and Clyde, it's that they were criminals together. They lived out the lives of ill-fated criminals. I was seriously excited to get some of that action...but it fell flat for me. There was some stealing...of tampons... Sorry, that's no Bonnie and Clyde.Besides that, this ride flew by me. I felt engaged and I just knew that was going to happen at the end. :( The end was a bit too quick for my tastes, but with some incredible force that made up for it. It's about sacrifice and love - which is not always easy. In this case, it's HUGE. And totally the perfect way to end this story. While it was sad, it held a lot of promise for the future, and that's what really counts.I am, however, really surprised that I didn't cry. I thought I would, but apparently I wasn't that invested. Still, I'm sure this story has prompted many tears in others.SUMMING IT UP -Saddening. A stunningly-written debut for Kristin! Definitely add Nobody But Us to your book list!For the Parents -Lots of kissing. Passionate, details, with some removing of clothes. Will is once naked in front of Zoe...as he tickles her. They don't have sex; Zoe wants to wait. A lot of F-bombs and other swear words, often used very negatively. Recommended 16+

[codename5012 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found myself torn by this book. On the one hand, it was a quick read, I finished it in two days because I found myself wanting to know what would happen. On the other hand, the relationship between Will and Zoe made me incredibly uncomfortable. Will has just turned 18, and Zoe is 15. FIFTEEN. And no amount of "but she's mature" can make up for the fact that she is a fifteen year old who is emotionally stunted by her own childhood trauma. Because of this, I find it incredibly difficult to sympathize with Will. Despite his fervent wish for the relationship to be equal partners, his constant refrain of "taking care of Zoe" just hammers in how incredibly unequal this relationship is. Do I think teens will be bothered by this as much as I was? Probably not, no. But as an adult, I found myself uneasy by the one thing I was supposed to believe in when reading this novel. Oh well. My teens will probably love this obsessive, tragic love story.

[pnh002 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book was nothing like I expected it to be. Sad thing is, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Even more sad than that, this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2013. My expectations for this were so high, but they barely reached the bar. Zoe is a fifteen year old girl who is left by herself with a drunken, abusive father. Will is an eighteen year old boy who has been in foster care almost his entire life. Together they found solace. They realize that the only way they can live peacefully is together, without anyone else around. So they take off on their own for a chance to survive. Sounds amazing right? Unfortunately, this book moved super slow for me. But, I was intrigued so I kept reading. Finally at about the last 20 pages or so, it picked up. If the rest of the book had been like the last 20 pages, I would have enjoyed this so much more. Before then it seemed like everything happened just so the plot could move. But finally, the action picked up. The writing made it seem like what was being written was actually going on. And the emotion in it was incredible. Now the emotion was the only thing really tying me to the book. I wanted to know every move that Will made because he was so emotionally driven. He may not have been the smartest, but everything he did had some type of feeling behind it and that's what caused him to do it. The number one thing was his love for Zoe. Now Zoe, she was the logical thinker of the two. She was the one that was driven by her mind and not her heart. I'm not sure why, but I didn't connect with her as much as Will. I just felt a little distant from her. I'm thinking it was because although she was the thinker in the situation, she still went back and forth in her decisions. But I will say this wasn't the easiest of situations to deal with so she deserved to be a little conflicted. As for the romance man Will is totally swoon worthy. (Minus all the other stuff....) His love for Zoe is unwavering. Through everything, throughout the entire book he showed his love for her. As I said he was the one that really thought with his emotions, so it came off as a little intense, but it was just the way he was. Now her love for him was different. It was obvious she loved him too, but since she was the logical one, every time she tried to show it, she showed it a little different. It didn't seem as deep as it was for Will. But that's only because she wasn't as comfortable showing her emotions as he was. Although my expectations were not met, I was still able to enjoy this. I could see why Halbrook chose to do certain things and why she left certain things out, even if I did not agree with them.

[bookswithbite · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a really unique book. I didn't expect certain twist and turns but in the end, I found that I really enjoyed it.Starting off strong with a violent homes and absentee parents, these two have learned to love and rely on one another. Despite their age difference (15 &18) I can see why it worked so well. They both had nobody but just each other. Just like the title. Their love is strong and enduring with a good example of how love can take you anywhere if you left it.The downward spiral of chaos begins with fear. That's all it takes. There is no concrete evidence, but fear overtakes this couple, sending them the run. The fear escalates in their minds leading them to make bad decisions. These decisions lead to a very distraught ending that I particularly did NOT expect. It's not a HEA but a bittersweet end that I can not get enough of. Just the way that it ended, it made me want to read more into the story. Alas, the story had ended and my curiosity can not be quenched.Nobody But Us is a promising love story that is unique. The potent leading roles of Zoe and Will lead the reader down a road full of action and surprise. An impressive sentimental story, Nobody But Us is great.