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Wasted

by Nicola Morgan (Goodreads Author)

3.71 of 5 stars 3.71 · rating details · 112 ratings · 23 reviews

When danger, passion and chance collide...Jack worships luck and decides his actions by the flip of a coin. No risk is too great if the coin demands it. Luck brings him Jess, a beautiful singer who will change his life. But Jack's luck is running out, and soon the stakes are high. As chance and choice unravel, the risks of Jack's Game become terrifyingly clear. An evening...more

Paperback, 352 pages

Published May 3rd 2010 by Walker

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Feb 04, 2012 Vrinda Pendred rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good book, but so tediously written. I felt like I was going to slam my head against a wall if I had to read one more time that Jack was dangerous or that they did not know the danger that awaited them, or more full on paragraphs stating possibilities followed by 'but it wasn't that way...' It was just such interfering narration that built everything up so much, I was expecting something much more dramatic in the end than actually happened.

BUT...I really liked the idea, three what if concept. Th...more

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Oct 03, 2010 Caroline rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult

Wasted is one of those books you love to hate or hate to love. I loved some aspects of the story, and at other times, I just wanted to creep behind that narrator and hit him/her/it with a frying pan. So bad that I even considered not finishing the book. But I did continue and even though I didn't exactly like the book, I am glad I did read it in the end.

The story centres on the relationship between Jess and Jack. They are both musicians and they meet by chance at school and start becoming friend...more Wasted is one of those books you love to hate or hate to love. I loved some aspects of the story, and at other times, I just wanted to creep behind that narrator and hit him/her/it with a frying pan. So bad that I even considered not finishing the book. But I did continue and even though I didn't exactly like the book, I am glad I did read it in the end.

The story centres on the relationship between Jess and Jack. They are both musicians and they meet by chance at school and start becoming friends when Jack asks Jess to be the singer for his band for Prom. There is some serious chemistry between those two, and they soon develop feelings for each other that are more than just friendship.
But the book has a second level where chance and luck are questioned through the presence of that annoying narrator and what is called "Jack's game". Ever since he was a little boy, Jack was led to believe that chance doesn't exist and that people simply get lucky or unlucky*. That is why he flips a coin for it to decide what he should do, so that he isn't responsible for the decision or choice. That is Jack's game, whenever there is a decision to be made, he flips a coin to go in one direction or another.

The relation between Jess and Jack builds up because of their passion for music and their respective personalities. I loved how they interacted. The two characters are really well described and have very interesting lives. There is a lot of depth in all the characters, even though there aren't many overanalytic descriptions either. They also felt like real teenagers with many flaws and doing several bad things for some.
I was also very touched by Jess's family situation. I am sure that there are a lot of children taking care of themselves on their own and even having to take care of their parents as well. Jess's dad left them to go live in America and Jess's mom is an alcoholic. She is a very strong character and I was really happy to continue reading the story and discover more aspects of her personality.

One of the most important characteristic of the book is, for me, the narrator, who seems to take at times more space than the actual characters of the book. The narrator knew too much and was talking way too much. I know what you must think "How can the narrator of a book 'speak too much'?", but it really feels that way. It felt to me as if the narrator was chance or luck (or whichever you want to call it) personified, playing with its character puppets. I hated that narrator with all my guts. It made me feel as if the character had no choice or influence over their own lives and just played in someone else's game. A someone way more powerful than a mere human. It felt a little obscene sometimes, especially when two different chapters would be written with two possibilities and the reader could flip a coin to decide which was the version that would happen to the characters.

The book made me question my own perception of life. I am very passionate about being independent, and this book shows how completely irrelevant independence is. I seriously disagree with that. With independence comes responsability of your actions, they are the two sides of the same coin, and I didn't like how this responsability was sometimes surrendered knowingly to chance or luck by the characters. I don't want to write a lot about it, but I really didn't like that part of the story.

I was also surprised by the style, the book is written in the present tense, it definitely serves the story, but it felt highly unusual to me at the beginning.

I wouldn't say I liked this book, but it spoke to me and even brought some very extreme reactions. It is an interesting read and I feel that the story would have been less powerful had the narrator been more subtle. It is also interesting to challenge your own beliefs and opinions. It is a very unique book, I would advise it to people who like challenging and original books.

* I found it funny because in French, "luck" translates as "chance". It is interesting to see the emphasis put on the difference between the two concepts.(less)

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Jun 06, 2010 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: gen-fiction, youth

Wasted can be read as a teenage romance, a coming-of-age story of both Jess and Jack, who are at the cusp of adulthood. It can also be read as an exercise in reader involvement. I don't mean to imply that it is a Choose Your Own Adventure style story; the reader is not involved in that way. The reader is involved, however, by being addressed directly by the narrator and being privy to the "what ifs" in Jack and Jess's story (what if the coin had landed on tails, rather than heads?), and at one p...more Wasted can be read as a teenage romance, a coming-of-age story of both Jess and Jack, who are at the cusp of adulthood. It can also be read as an exercise in reader involvement. I don't mean to imply that it is a Choose Your Own Adventure style story; the reader is not involved in that way. The reader is involved, however, by being addressed directly by the narrator and being privy to the "what ifs" in Jack and Jess's story (what if the coin had landed on tails, rather than heads?), and at one point flipping a coin to find out how the story resolves. This is a kind of knowledge we usually don't get even in a third-person omniscient narrated story.

The narrator in Wasted is a particular kind of narrator. Usually in novels told in the third person, the writer gets the narrator out of the way--the narrator is simply there to relay the tale, not participate. Omniscient or limited, the narrator doesn't often function as an active member of the story, and for that matter, the reader isn't either. Nicola Morgan has shaped this narrator a bit differently, though, and it took me some time to adjust my thinking about how a narrator functions, and how I feel comfortable with a narrator's function. Our narrator here, while not a named character, is more than just someone who relays the tale, and makes sure that we readers remember our place as observer as well. This has great significance when Jack has named his band Schrödinger's Cat, after quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger's famous thought experiment. One of the upshots of quantum physics is that the simple act of observing an experiment can change the outcome. So this makes me wonder: by observing Jess and Jack, by watching Jack flip his coin, have we changed the outcome? If we know both results of the flip of a coin--tails you survive an encounter, heads you don't--if we know this, don't both states exist at the same time? So how does the story really end?

Having the narrator address me, the reader, directly took me out of the story a bit, but I understand why I needed to reminded that I was an observer, so I have mixed feelings about it. It didn't lessen the poignant romance between Jack and Jess, nor did it make me care less about either character. In the end, I feel about Wasted very much how I feel about Schrödinger's poor hypothetical cat: nifty as an idea, as an exercise in thought and experiment, but the ramifications of it make my brain melt a little.(less)

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May 09, 2010 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

A story about luck and the part it plays in our lives. Would you risk your life on the spin of a coin? Jack does.

Truly an amazing book that really makes you wonder about the little chances that life turns on. A story about love, fate and the danger of leaving things to chance. The writing style allows/encourages the reader to sit back and see Jess and Jack's story from a distance, to see the options open and close around them, but also, I felt, to think about other good or bad luck stories one...more

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May 30, 2010 Talli Roland rated it 5 of 5 stars

When I read Wasted by Nicola Morgan, I actually felt compelled to write about it. There's something so unique about the voice that it's almost hypnotic. It's been awhile since I've read something that drew me in quite like this.

The book moves between Jack and Jess, following them as their lives intersect and twist and turn depending on the flip of Jack's coin. It's a fascinating concept, but what really made this book interesting for me is the omniscient narrator who is so present it's almost l...more

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May 20, 2011 SJ rated it 3 of 5 stars

Hm. Ok, this book starts off so brilliantly that I had huge hopes for it. I love the voice of the author, who manages to use a minamalist writing technique and yet create such rich imagery with just a few words.

Frankly, I got weary of it, though. The book keeps its tone steady throughout and at some point I grew tired of it. The point of the story is the way that small details can change everything, and it makes its point quite early. But then you get stuck having to slog through pages and page...more

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Mar 25, 2011 Claire Dawn rated it 5 of 5 stars

WASTED is so different from everything you've ever read, that you'll either love it or hate it. It's the story of a boy who lives his life according to the toss of a coin and the girl he meets through it.

Jack does not believe in chance. He believes in cause and effect. His coin tosses are a sacrifice to the powers that be. By putting his life at the mercy of the coin toss, he guarantees good luck. That is, until Jess comes into his life, and he realises, that he can't control it all.

WASTED is...more

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Jul 27, 2010 Carly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

So I think everybody remembers those wonderful books from the 90’s, where you got to the end of a chapter and decided between two options how you wanted the book to continue. I remember there were some great ones in the Goosebumps series (which I adored, by the way) so I was really excited when I read the synopsis of Wasted and hoped it would be something similar.

Wasted is a more mature, sophisticated version of these books, which really explores chance and luck and how one tiny change can make...more

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Nov 22, 2011 Clover (Fluttering Butterflies) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-reading-challenge, books-read-in-2011

This review was originally posted on Fluttering Butterflies

Wasted by Nicola Morgan is a pretty unusual book. I bought it awhile back, after hearing a lot of buzz about it when it was first published, but I still felt a little bit unsure if it would be a book I'd enjoy. And when I finally did pick up Wasted, I was very pleasantly surprised.

The story is about two characters, Jack and Jess and their relationship, but what I find very different about this book is the third person narrator who gives...more This review was originally posted on Fluttering Butterflies

Wasted by Nicola Morgan is a pretty unusual book. I bought it awhile back, after hearing a lot of buzz about it when it was first published, but I still felt a little bit unsure if it would be a book I'd enjoy. And when I finally did pick up Wasted, I was very pleasantly surprised.

The story is about two characters, Jack and Jess and their relationship, but what I find very different about this book is the third person narrator who gives little hints of foreboding as well as passing comments on the characters. At times, I felt like this narration style could easily become irritating, but it never quite reached that point for me. Because it's a style of writing I've not come across veru often, I found it pretty novel all the way through.

And aside from that, I also really felt for both Jack and Jess. They're both going through some difficult issues and how they are portrayed made me instantly care about these characters and all they are dealing with. Jack is a musician in a band, quite confident and good-looking, but he's also holding on to some pretty serious guilt after the deaths of his mother and his step-mother at a very early age. And Jess is a talented singer who has mostly given up on her dreams of going to music college in order to stay at home to look after her alcoholic mother. They meet by chance and Jack invites Jess to sing in his band. Fueled by the idea of singing in a band and spending more time with this hot guy she's attracted to, Jess says 'yes' but our narrator continually reminds the reader that Jack is in fact dangerous.

And dangerous things do end up happening. Jack introduces Jess to this game of luck that he plays. In order to organise the chaos in his life and to maintain some small level of control on the world who would take away both of his mothers, Jack allows decisions to be made on the flip of a coin. He has an entire reasoning behind it and believes in it in this desperate, gradually obsessive way. And as I watched Jack getting involved deeper into this game of luck, it was almost impossible for me to turn away. I cared about Jack, I cared about his new relationship with Jess and I really wanted everything to turn out OK. And as a reader, there were opportunities to take part in this story, to flip a coin and experience different outcomes. It was strange but fascinating.

I really found the ideas of luck and chance to be very compelling to read about, I love how emotionally involved I felt in Jack and Jess's lives and the way in which philosophy and really abstract ideas played a part in the novel. Wasted is a very different and enjoyable read, and I'm very happy that I gave this book a chance! (less)

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Feb 27, 2011 Mark Warner rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-teen

This contained some interesting ideas... how much of our lives can we design for ourselves and how much is down to luck / chance? Although the story and the two main characters were interesting, I got bored of the way that different possibilities kept being offered about how things might happen in their lives... I just wanted to hear about what DID happen. It was a clever idea but I didn't find it particularly convincing and it distracted me from the actual story. I wasn't impressed with the way...more

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Apr 03, 2012 Jaydine Foley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Weird but brilliant! I don't normally like things written in the present tense but for some reason, this really appealed to me.

I actually have no words to describe the book itself. It was so weird yet captivating. Jack runs his life according to a flip of a coin; makes decisions on whether the result is heads or tails. It's full of 'what if's and the narrator explores these before telling you what actually happens, then at the end it's up to you. You flip a coin. You play Jack's Game. You could...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Ringo The Cat rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: young-adult, ya

Nicola Morgan’s Wasted can best be described as a philosophical approach of your run of the mill love story. It’s the philosophical angle, of course, that makes this young adult novel stand out from the crowd. (Btw, butt-ugly cover!)
In this unconventional love story, told by an omniscient narrator (one of the key factors in this book) we meet Jack and Jess – two teenagers on the brink of adulthood about to make life-determining choices. In ‘normal’ life, when a boy meets a girl there are of cour...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Discovery College rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: friendship, identity, journey, life-choices, relationships, teen-female, uk

Not sure if I enjoyed this story - I liked the idea behind it - that it is the small things that add up to bigger things in your life and that everything has a knock on effect, however, I found the "choose a chapter to read" a bit of an overkill and disrupted the plot line. It does however illustrate how different actions and events, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant can lead to different outcomes.

The actual story of the young people was quite good, with interesting twists.

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Sep 06, 2011 Brenda Bell rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 1-star-books

Quite how this got published is the first mystery and the second is all the five star reviews. It's as if I read a completely different book to the 5 star reviewers. The point of the story is the way that small details can change everything, and it makes this point quite early. Then you get stuck having to slog through pages and pages where nothing happens. It was so bad that I even considered not finishing the book. But I did. What a complete waste of time!

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Apr 27, 2010 Tamsyn Murray rated it 5 of 5 stars

An absolutely storming book from start to finish, Wasted had me gripped all the way through. Nicola Morgan cleverly draws the reader in from the very first page and involves you in the story by means of flipping a coin to determine where the story goes next. My heart was thumping on several occasions and the end is nothing short of brilliant. Buy it - there's no chance you'll regret it.

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Apr 25, 2011 Marsha Sigman rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was different. Strange and haunting. After a few chapters you become familiar with the British vocabulary and just fall into the story. It's interactive, have to see read it to understand and I cannot say how happy I was that the coin came up tails for me.

Awesome book.

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Jan 14, 2011 Dan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Didn't convince - annoying narrator, nice protagonist, infuriating love interest. Interesting theme of chance with the coin tossing, but to what end? Felt like it needed a year more work on the writing, more editing and a whole lot of thought. Sadly I haven't been amazed by Morgan since Mondays are Red, and this will probably be my last book by her.

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Feb 11, 2013 Dave rated it 1 of 5 stars

My first and last from Nicola Morgan. Lots of little by-plays which hinted more later and never did. Was Jack dangerous? Didn't see any situation where he was. Pointless part about her dad, which went nowhere. Tedious nonsense. Why did I bother finishing it?

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Jul 18, 2010 Book Angel Emma rated it 4 of 5 stars

compelling in an odd dijointed way - very much like the way I think. Mix real life with quantum physics and anything can happen :D

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Aug 01, 2011 Catherine rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my favourite book of the last year.

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May 05, 2012 Tori rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-finish

Didn't like this book at all. The writing wasn't amazing n although I thought the idea sounded good it just didn't work in the end.
I hated that half the time I was reading stuff I'd already read and even though your meant too pick I couldn't help but read both to see the alternative story.
Didnt even finish it.

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May 15, 2012 Gabrielle rated it 2 of 5 stars

It was alright. I not the best book I've read. I wish there was more chance to flip the coin.

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Dec 10, 2011 Amelia rated it 5 of 5 stars

OMG, must read!!!! Can't tell much because of spoilers but wowzers it's good!

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May 16, 2013 Charlotte marked it as to-buy

May 14, 2013 Nina Speight rated it 2 of 5 stars

May 10, 2013 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 02, 2013 Taylor marked it as to-read

Mar 06, 2013 Tsaki marked it as to-read

Mar 05, 2013 Tom rated it 4 of 5 stars

Feb 28, 2013 Jewls marked it as to-read

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