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Genre:
Psychological Suspense/ Dark Romance
Summary on Goodreads:
They say when you take revenge against another you lose a part of your innocence.
But I’m not innocent.
I haven’t been for a very long time.
My innocence was stolen from me. Taken was the life I was supposed to have. The soul I was born with. The ruby heart embedded in a life full of hopes and dreams.
Gone.
Vanished.
I never even had a choice.
I mourn that life. Mourn the what-ifs.
Until now.
I’m ready to take back what was always meant to be mine.
But every plan has a fatal flaw. Sometimes it’s the heart.
**Due to the dark and explicit nature of this book, it is recommended for mature audiences only.*
RATING:
***REVIEW***
We all save face for others to perceive us in the best light.
Nothing is real until you break down the walls and reveal the ugliness.
"Ugliness," I repeat as I look at him.
"The truest part of the person is always the ugliest.
And with your evasiveness, I would bet that you're pretty
damn ugly beneath all that gloss."
This book, to put it mildly, left me shocked, highly disturbed & speechless. I just wanted to crawl into my bed and hide under the blanket until I forget some of the images it put into my head. It left me with huge mixed & conflicting feelings. How the fu** am I going to rate this was one of my thoughts when I finished it and even days after reading it I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
The story was dark, complex, twisted, disturbing, raw, brutal, deeply emotional, touching & way too hot. One big & non-forgiving, psychological mind-fuck. The first quote above describes the theme of the book the best in my opinion. It was really well-written, there's no doubt about that. You could feel every emotion of the characters as if they were your own, as if you were there with them. The writing style definitely deserves 5 stars, BUT for the story itself, I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, it was good, I did like it, but there were also some loopholes I just couldn't overlook.
Be warned: this is not an easy read at all. It deals with a lot of heavy issues (abuse, rape, pedophilia, death etc.), every each of them described in fairly explicit details. These parts were really disturbing and emotionally exhausting, but they were also very important to be able to understand the story and the development of the characters. If you are familiar with the work of this author, you'll know what I mean. I read her Fading Series before, so I had some idea what to expect, but still, this was definitely more disturbing. These scenes gave me nightmares one night after reading and I had to put the story aside a couple of times to compose myself.
There are a lot of grey areas in this book which may make you uncomfortable and it revolves around characters with questionable redeemable quality, especially the main character Elizabeth/Nina. Is she a redeemable character? I'm not sure. To be exact, I'm not sure if that can be said for many characters in it. One thing for sure is that she is way too fucked-up, but that's more than realistic after the things she's been through. The mind-fuck begins as a big mystery with mixed present and past events and the minute the secret, lies & betrayals begin to reveal- shit hits the fan. I won't say anything else about the story, the blurb being more than enough, because everything might be spoilerish when it comes to mind-fucks like this. Read it and decide for yourself.
It ends up with a big cliffhanger, but after everything that happened in the second half of the book, I was more than content with the way it ended. I will definitely read the next one, but I'm glad it's not published yet, because I really need time to compose my feelings about this one. I would recommend it to the fans of dark reads and fans of the show Revenge, because the premise and some details of the story reminded me on that show, but have in mind that this is way much darker.
"Weakness derives from the soul.
Most everyone has one, which gives a woman like me leverage.
Leverage to play people to my liking, and so I do."
The story was dark, complex, twisted, disturbing, raw, brutal, deeply emotional, touching & way too hot. One big & non-forgiving, psychological mind-fuck. The first quote above describes the theme of the book the best in my opinion. It was really well-written, there's no doubt about that. You could feel every emotion of the characters as if they were your own, as if you were there with them. The writing style definitely deserves 5 stars, BUT for the story itself, I'm not sure. Don't get me wrong, it was good, I did like it, but there were also some loopholes I just couldn't overlook.
There are a lot of grey areas in this book which may make you uncomfortable and it revolves around characters with questionable redeemable quality, especially the main character Elizabeth/Nina. Is she a redeemable character? I'm not sure. To be exact, I'm not sure if that can be said for many characters in it. One thing for sure is that she is way too fucked-up, but that's more than realistic after the things she's been through. The mind-fuck begins as a big mystery with mixed present and past events and the minute the secret, lies & betrayals begin to reveal- shit hits the fan. I won't say anything else about the story, the blurb being more than enough, because everything might be spoilerish when it comes to mind-fucks like this. Read it and decide for yourself.
It ends up with a big cliffhanger, but after everything that happened in the second half of the book, I was more than content with the way it ended. I will definitely read the next one, but I'm glad it's not published yet, because I really need time to compose my feelings about this one. I would recommend it to the fans of dark reads and fans of the show Revenge, because the premise and some details of the story reminded me on that show, but have in mind that this is way much darker.
MY ISSUES WITH THE STORY:
1. THE REASON BEHIND ELIZABETH'S REVENGE
Aside from the second half of the story turning into a sappy romance with a lot of drama, this is the biggest reason for my rating. I was not o.k. with the reason for her revenge at all when we finally find out what it is. That doesn't justify at all the things she has done! I wish the author gave us better reason for that, because the whole mind-fuck is based on that particular reason and it should have been more believable and justifying.
2. TOO MUCH DRAMA
I liked the 1st half of the book slightly better than the second half and wish that the author didn't take the story in some directions she did in the second half turning it into sappy romance with a lot of drama at times.
3. ELIZABETH a.k.a NINA
As I already said- I don't know if she's a redeemable character. I don't know if I like her. I guess I'll make my final decision about it in the 2nd book.
4. LOVE INTERESTS
This is not your typical fluffy romance. It's a dark romance and there's a love square involved, but I could deal with it to some extent, because it was important to understand the story. I will be be short about this:
- I like Bennet.
- I'm undecided about Declan.
- I utterly hate Pike.
xoxo
i love books that can really shock me, so i think i may give this one a go! id love it if youd comment back http://amyelizabethfashion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/southbeachsummer-event.html xx
ReplyDeleteThen you should definitely give this one a go Amy!
DeleteThanks for stopping by. :)
Hrm! Part of me really really wants this one. lol The cliffy bleh though. That's too bad the reason behind it all wasn't more solid. Thanks for the heads up on this one. Hadn't seen it yet. It's gonna go on my thinking about it shelf :)
ReplyDeleteIf you are fan of dark reads, you should definitely go for it.
DeleteThis does sound dark but I love all those quotes!
ReplyDeleteMe too, the book is well-written, I was highlighting like crazy :)
DeleteOh my, I can handle dark, and edgy but I need to feel the character is valid and this doesn't sound like it delivered.
ReplyDeleteThe story could have been brilliant imo if she handled some situations differently. If you like dark reads, I definitely think you should go for it. It has great rating on GR and Amazon too.
DeleteI'm looking forward to this book. I am really enjoying dark reads. I just keep telling myself it is fictional. I have some of E.K's other reads that I should crack open too. Dark reads are meant to shock and have us going WTF!! I have to space them out and normally read a funny book after, but I think authors dig deep to come up with these types of stories. :D
ReplyDeleteDitto :), can't wait to see what are you going to think about this. I love dark reads from time to time just because of that unpredictable and shocking effect. Definitely need something fluffy after this :D
DeleteHow I love being push outside my comfort zone, and this sound like it will do just that. I remember reading The Siren by Tiffany Reiz and feeling the same way, although I'm very afraid to even think about reading about anything with pedophilia as it is one of my most hated and dispised subjects, but I can't denied I'm very curious, I do love book that make think and make confront subjects I would never think of confronting.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your feelings!
Pedophilia is also something that it's way out of my comfort zone when reading, but I guess, that aspect of the story is very important to be able to understand the development of the main character. Yes, this book makes you feel similar like when reading Original Sinner series- you're shocked by the development of the story, but you still like it.
DeleteThanks for stopping by :)