He slowly turned around. “What is love? In English.” I raised my brows. “Love, in English, is love?” “What is it in Spanish?” I was so enthralled by h
He slowly turned around. “What is love? In English.” I raised my brows. “Love, in English, is love?” “What is it in Spanish?” I was so enthralled by his hypnotic eyes, I could barely remember. “Amore?” He shook his head ever so slightly. “No. Love in Spanish is you.”
I got to hand it to Mateo, when you have a successful hit line, milk it for all it's worth.
This is not a contemporary romance. It is a fairy tale, a fantasy in which adultery is not only accepted but condoned and encouraged by everyone involved (except, naturally, for the unfortunate wife and child). Were this not a book, with predictable, expected elements of falling in love, we would be reading about the sad tale of a naive, broken young woman with daddy issues who got used up and spit out by an older, wiser, manipulative sports celebrity who knew just what to say to get her to spread her legs and open her heart.
There are certain elements of romance I dislike, but which I can appreciate when done well, adultery is one of them. I do not like adultery, but I read this book knowing that there will be cheating. I did not start this book thinking I would hate it, I started this book with an open mind, but since this is a premise I do not like, I expected certain things out of it in order for it to convince me to support the couple involved:
I wanted it to: 1. Show me a well-drawn, realistic, and believable romance 2. Show me that there is more beyond this relationship beyond that of lust and insta-love 3. Show me that there is actual love involved beyond the superficial 4. Show me why I should condone these two
This book did none of the above. It did nothing to convince me that, outside of the fairy-tale fantasy of a book, that this relationship could have existed. It was not realistic.
"Well, Khanh, why did you read a fucking romance novel if you wanted things to be realistic, then?!" Because I expect SOME elements of realism in my contemporary novels. Otherwise, I would be reading Harlequins with titles like THE BILLIONAIRE MMA BIKER SURGEON SHEIK'S ACCIDENTAL TWIN DAUGHTERS WITH THEIR BUNNY DOLLS or something like that. I wanted this book to be believable, is that too much to ask?
The Setup: Unrealistic and improbable. Vera is a 23-year old college astronomy student. She is in Spain, she is enrolled to work as an English speaker for a program that will immerse native Spanish speakers with English for several weeks. She doesn't speak a word of Spanish, and therefore runs late to the bus. When she gets to the bus, there is only one seat available. The one next to darkly handsome, world-famous Mateo Casellas.
Ok, some problems with that.
1. Why the fuck is the handsome, world-famous (think retired Spanish David Beckham who now owns several famous Spanish restaurants) Mateo SITTING ALL BY HIMSELF in a country where everyone knows who he is?!
2. Why the fuck is Mateo in this school in the first place? He speaks fluent Spanish, as Vera points out herself. He wants to learn to speak better English because people look down on businessmen who can't speak English well.
Ok, understandable, BUT there are some more problems with that.
1. Granted, we can't see the accent within the page, but Mateo speaks almost flawless English. My English is pretty damn perfect, and there are but few flaws in the way Mateo speaks within the book. He lacks some pop culture words, some slangs, but otherwise, his English is wonderful. As for slangs, well, shit, a book could take care of that, don't you think? It would certainly waste less time.
2. His wife speaks fluent English. Why not get her help?! Arg!
The thing about this book, is that in a realistic world, Mateo and Vera wouldn't have met in the first place, because Mateo has no need of Vera's English skilllllz!
Vera:
The thing was, I didn’t do love. That wasn’t my thing. That was the reason why I didn’t date, I only got laid when I needed to blow some steam or have some fun. Love was scarier than deep space.
Could have fooled me. Vera: the troubled young woman who vows never to fall in love---only to fall in insta-lust and then love---with Mateo before 30% of the book is even through. A walking cliche. A clinical psychologist's dream patient, because man, is there a lot to psychoanalyze here. Troubled childhood doesn't even begin to describe it. Vera has been doing drugs since she was barely in high school. She sleeps around, she doesn't really care about her family besides her brother, she doesn't care about anyone, or anything...and nobody really cares about her either.
The thing with Vera is she's had a string of really, really incompetent boyfriends and easy lays, none of whom ever sees beyond the superficial, none of whom ever cared about her. She's only ever had really, really stupid boys. It takes a mature, wise, manipulative man like Mateo all of five minutes of DEEEEEEEEP QUESTIONING INTO HER SOUL to make her feel like she's the center of the universe. He gets her to talk about herself, her wishes, her dreams. It takes SO LITTLE effort on his part to make Vera melt into a puddle of love-goo.
“You are special, Estrella,” Mateo said, his eyes softening as he gazed at me.
Vera is an astronomy student. Mateo starts nicknaming her "Estrella," meaning "Star" in Spanish. She thinks it's the most wonderfully romantic thing EVER.
What a disappointment. I wanted Vera to be harder to seduce.
Mateo:
“Ugly?” Mateo said in fervent disbelief. “No. You are terribly beautiful, Vera. So beautiful that it hurts. You would outshine her like the star you are.”
A suave Spanish lover. One who knows just what to say, what buttons to push, in order to seduce a girl. Especially one so obviously broken and damaged as the tattooed, tough, blunt, hard-spoken Vera.
In this fairy-tale world, he falls in love, improbably so, I feel. In the real world, this could have ended in Vera's broken heart. Of course, the book is set up so that Mateo falls madly in love for Vera, but were it not for the book's very obvious setup of that scenario, I would not have believed it.
Mateo's romantic words to Vera are lovely, exquisite, and ever-so-rehearsed. They are lines from a romance novel, a movie, the sort that Nicholas Sparks would have been proud to author.They are too smooth, they are too much, they are completely unbelievable...given this man is supposed to NOT have been fluent in English, remember?
“You already are the other woman!” he yelled right back. His words smashed into me, blowing me to smithereens. He cupped my face in his hands. “You already are, whether you want to be or not. You’ve bewitched me, Vera. You’ve blinded me. You’ve made me forget my vows. And all you had to do was shine.”
Spare me. Mateo's lines are that of an experienced seducer, one who, for all we know, could have come to the school every few months to have an affair alone. God knows it's commonly done here, since others in the group have obviously confessed to having love affairs in this "school." It's not a school, it's an expensive rendezvous point.
The Affair:
“Well…you’re married,” I said unevenly, wishing my heart would slow the fuck down, feeling completely exposed even in the dark of night. “And so are many of them.” “It would be inappropriate...” “How do you know? Is this inappropriate?”
From the very moment that Vera and Mateo lay eyes on each other, they, well, want to lay each other. I wanted a slow introduction, I wanted more depth than just insta-love and insta-lust. I didn't get that. Mateo and Vera are intensely attracted to each other, they constantly flirt, touch. Mateo is horny for Vera. Vera gets her panties wet for Mateo. That's fine! There's nothing wrong with insta-lust, but it doesn't convince me that this is a relationship that has any depth beyond that. And it is an affair. Mateo has been wearing a wedding ring since the beginning.
Initially, he refuses to talk about his wife. But he's still married.
He insinuates a difficult relationship with his wife. But he's still married.
We don't know what his wife is like. She could be a bitch (she's not). Regardless of what kind of personality she has, he's still married.
He flirts with Vera. He's still married.
They fuck. He's still married.
They carry on a long-distance relationship. He's still married.
The Legacy of Adultery:
I shook my head adamantly. “It’s wrong. I don’t want to be the other woman. I’ve seen my dad go for the other woman, I can’t put his daughter through that,” I said. “Or his wife,” I quickly added.
Yes. It's wrong. And her moral dilemma lasts all of 5 seconds.What hurts about Vera is that she's no stranger to cheating. I wanted this book and Vera to address the morality issue, and it doesn't do it very well. Yeah, she reminds herself that he's married, she should stay away, but then Mateo makes her tinklies tingle so much that she can't really stay away for more than an hour. It goes that way throughout the book. It's wrong! I'm doing it anyway. I can't help myself. The internal moral deliberations are rare, indeed.
Vera's dad cheated on her mother. It turned Vera's childhood into a nightmare, it destroyed her family, it changed her personality, her life. Vera knows well the implications of adultery, and she does it anyway. Vera's boyfriend in high school cheated on her consistently. She knows how much pain that entails, to suffer while your loved one is cheating on you. She does it anyway.
If this book wanted me to sympathize with Vera, it would have done a better job of making me feel Vera's pain, hurt, her desperation to try to stay away from Mateo. The thing is, VERA NEVER TRIES REALLY HARD AT ALL. Neither does Mateo. Their relationship didn't feel like one of love, it's one based off lust, that stays focused on lust, and we're supposed to accept the fact that they're in love without much evidence.
The Other Woman (Mateo's Wife): I don't care if she's the biggest bitch in the world, she doesn't deserve to be cheated on until their divorce and separation has been finalized. We're supposed to hate The Wife because she tried to change Mateo from a playboy soccer diva to a decent husband.
"But Isabel convinced him to give it all up. To get away from the lifestyle she considered too wild.” “Wild?” She smirked. “Oh yes. Our players are known for being a little wild and crazy. Lots of sex and fights and drinking. Mateo was no different than the rest. And Isabel, with her Duchess grandmother and her socialite status, she didn’t want that."
*crickets chirp*
Wait a minute, so we're supposed to hate The Wife because she wanted Mateo to be something 90% of the world's wives want of their husband?! IS THAT SO FUCKING WRONG TO NOT WANT YOUR HUSBAND TO CHEAT ON YOU, TO DO DRUGS, TO PARTY, AND INSTEAD SPEND TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY? I HAD NO FUCKING IDEA. I can't say that I hate The Wife at all, and in order for me to condone this affair, I should have some reason to hate the wife, to feel that Mateo is correct in seeking love elsewhere.
He doesn't.
This book has completely failed to convince me to support the adulterous affair of Vera and Mateo. No, thank you....more
The man I shot was named Jason Earhart, dean of the math department. But then, he was only a body. I am wicked because the moment Jason died, the on
The man I shot was named Jason Earhart, dean of the math department. But then, he was only a body. I am wicked because the moment Jason died, the only thing I felt was relief. I murdered an innocent man in cold blood.
I'm sorry, am I supposed to like you?. This is a book about the nature of good and evil, and it completely failed to convince me that any of the criminals within this book deserved a second chance at life. I am not pro-death penalty by any means. This book just failed to be convincing on the grounds of speculative fiction.
This book tries to present the premise that a criminal may be granted a new lease on life if their minds, their genetic makeup is pure. That despite their murderous crime, they could still be goooooooooood inside.
Bullshit.
This book is an inconsistent, flashback-filled mess, with an unreliable first-person narrator. We are told that Evalyn is a murderer, and yet there's no attempt at building sympathy for her whatsoever. She shows no remorse; all we got is a self-pity-party, there was nary a mention of the people whom she was purported to have killed. How am I supposed to care about her? There's plenty of guts and blood, but it was purely gratuitous. I was gnawing on a small pork hock while reading a scene where a girl's head exploded, spraying bloody brain matter all over the fucking place without feeling a twinge of nausea. The violence is there only for shock value, because I didn't give a damn about any of the characters and I didn't care whether they lived or got gutted or died. There was no emotion to any of the deaths within this book.
What's the saying, "Do the crime, do the time?" Yeah. It may not be perfect, but our current justice system mostly works. So what the fuck is with this new Compass Room shit? I don't get it! What's the fucking point?!
It's not just the premise, the characters and how they're presented completely failed to back up the idea of inner goodness vs. "evil" acts. I feel that a person should be judged by their actions, not their thoughts. We all have a darkness within us. It's up to us to suppress that evil. This book completely failed to convince me on the concept of the Compass Room, and it didn't convince me that the criminals and killers within deserve to live through the experience.
The Summary:
Fifteen years ago, government scientists manufactured an accurate test for morality—an obstacle course, where the simulations within proved whether a candidate was good or evil. It was named a Compass Room.
Evalyn is a mass murderer.
The footage of my crime rolls. Crying families outside Roosevelt College. Students and professors wailing, screaming. FBI, police, bomb squad. All storming the school to catch one of the shooters who initiated fifty-six deaths. All storming the school to catch me.
She is one of eight who has killed 56 people at her college. She got caught, and now she is most likely going to die.
But not through the death penalty.
She has chosen the trials of the Compass Room. The Compass Room is a technology developed to determine the true morality within a person. It is a moral obstacle course, and it will kill those who are truly evil.
After the law passed, engineers updated the Rooms to kill the wicked. They became the most accurate form of the death penalty ever created.
It's not entirely clear how the Compass Room ("CR") works, but Evalyn is one of 10 criminals, all of them murderers, who will enter the CR to be tried. 10 will go in, statistics say that an average of 2.5 will make it out. The guys, girls, all in their teens through their 20s, are all multiple murderers. They are hoping for a chance to prove that their minds are good, that they deserve to live.
They enter the CR, and it's not as they expected. For one thing, it's not a room. It's a vast expanse of space that changes, that moves them from one "Testing" environment in different scenarios. From a plush mountain resort with top-shelf liquors to a wilderness where they have to scrounge for food. The only thing that remains consistent is the nightmares---or rather, the "Tests" that pop up to evaluate their goodness.
She creeps to me, shoulders erect. Her head hangs at an angle, stringy blonde hair falling limply around her shoulders, eyes sunken in their sockets. “Shh.” She reaches out, like she’s going to place a finger to my lips. I shut my eyes, waiting for her touch. “Don’t tell him I’m here. I want it to be a surprise.”
And the tests can be deadly. There is no trial by jury here. One wrong motion means death.
Clasping her hands on either side of his head, she twists, elbows swinging as she snaps his neck in half.
Except when it doesn't. Because it seems that the morality in this book is pretty relative.
Casey hacks and hacks, blood splattering across his face and clothes as he rips the knife away. He doesn’t stop, not when his dad has to be dead—again—his back nothing more than ripped denim and mangled pockets of swelling blood. My breath rattles through the air. Nothing happens.
Aaaand that's pretty much it. They find food. They fall in love. They survive. They make friends. They're all criminals, some of whom are intrinsically good inside? Whatever. I don't care.
The Premise:
Fifteen years ago, government scientists manufactured an accurate test for morality—an obstacle course, where the simulations within proved whether a candidate was good or evil. It was named a Compass Room.
Look, I don't give a flying fuck if your DNA is made up of flowers petals and a sprinkling of unicorn dust. If you raped my sister, if you killed my family. If you tortured and killed numerous people, I want you to rot in prison. I don't give a fuck if you're internally good if you've killed someone, intentionally or not. That's why we have a multi-layered justice system. You get tried by a jury of your peers, depending on the severity of your crime.
Involuntary manslaughter and negligence is judged and sentenced differently from murder. That's why you have different charges when a person gets tried for a crime. That's why after you get sentenced, there's yet another system of appeals in place. Your sentence will depend on the severity of your crime. There's a difference between killing someone by accident and getting a few years in prison, versus willfully committing multiple murders. THE JUSTICE SYSTEM! IT WORKS!
So why this book? What's the point, really? Especially when you can kill again and again and not get punished for it in the Compass Room? This book tries to tell us that murder is relative, that murder is ok if it's justified.
But it doesn't exactly work that way. Morals are not relative. You have to have some sort of absolute standard. Murder has to be wrong. Rape has to be wrong. Some things have to remain absolute. If morals are relative, can you give me an argument, that, well, there are some cases in which it's acceptable to rape a child? No. This book plays on the idea that morals are relative, and it doesn't work.
Furthermore, the "tests" in the Compass Room are just unconvincing. Different scenarios are presented, if you pass, you get to live, if you fail, you don't. But for some reason, some people can fucking kill and still be able to get away with it. What the hell?! I don't care if you killed someone who bullied you, that person may be a motherfucking asshat, but you are not judge, jury, and executioner. Someone doesn't deserve to die just because they are a jerk!
The concept of the Compass Room is just vague. The science is almost completely unexplained, and the reasoning behind the use of the Compass room just doesn't make any fucking sense. Yeah, it's supposed to save money, but how exactly does it fucking save money when there's only 10 people allowed inside at a time for a period of 30 fucking days. Why, if we have such advanced technology to manipulate the brain to create mass hallucinations, do we not just run a fucking simulation with one person strapped to a chair? Simple! Gah!
Remorse:
“I bet you’re enjoying this, dying just like her. Like you think you’re some fucking martyr,” he spits.
Evalyn is a oh boo fucking hoo poor poor me type of girl. She is a mass murderer. Throughout the book, we know that she's a killer, but we just don't know how.
But here's the thing, throughout the book, she never shows a single fucking sign of remorse. Not once did she ever feel sorry for all the people she has killed. Not once did she think about the countless lives she has destroyed, the countless numbers of wives, daughters, husbands, sons, friends whose lives she has devastated by her acts of murder. She only feels sorry for herself, and the fact that she could not help save the life of her friend, Meghan.
I was the one who kept proving myself to be a killer over and over in the Compass Room.
And she's another reason why the Compass Room is so unconvincing.
“Of course you wanted to kill him. We all did.”
So why is she still alive?! Clearly, the Compass Room has failed -.-
Final Comments: The writing runs purple prosy at times despite the complete lack of emotion in the book.
The Compass Room is pregnant with sin. Not the ghost of our crimes, but real, pungent sin.
And is just plain bad in some parts.
He doesn’t look at peace, more like a baby. A frightened baby.
The romance is stupid, but it doesn't bother me, despite the fact that this is a New Adult and the love interest is an honest-to-goodness killer. The flashbacks are completely useless, and serves only to frustrate me, because they contribute so little to the plot besides telling us about Evalyn's perfect life in college, with her wonderful (and completely forgotten) ex-bf Liam "Last Year."...more
To give you an impression of how much I hated this book, I will read the Halo trilogy in its entirety several times over rather than finish tDNF @ 20%
To give you an impression of how much I hated this book, I will read the Halo trilogy in its entirety several times over rather than finish this. There was nothing good about this book, and there is so much that is bad that I can write an entire fucking rant review based on the little that I've read.
To sum it up (details further down):
1. The writing is atrocious
2. It has every romantic trope in the book
3. The main character is fucking dumb and judgmental
4. The angels are fucking dumb
5. The demons are fucking dumb
The Summary:
This class is way over my head. Half an hour of this and I swear my notes were penned by a retarded monkey who is just as confused as I am.
Sophia St. James has delusions of going to Stanford one day. She's not only stupid, she's judgmental, offensive, and can't keep her fucking mouth shut.
“What kind of obtuse podunk outfit is this anyway? Supersized, narcissistic Rent-a-Cop!” I sit back and realize the cop has returned to my window. Aw crap.
Sophia has just moved from California to Connecticut, where they speak with weird accents, and words like "asshole" is pronounced "eh-hole."
His voice is rich with a funny eastern accent, which under lighter circumstances I would find amusing.
Hint: Eastern people don't really have accents. Newly arrived in Connecticut, she not only gets into trouble with the law, but she witnesses a strange guy hovering over a scene of a car accident. Cue insta-love. Sophia feels a "second heartbeat."
His head is now turning slowly, methodically, and he is looking at me as though I’m one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
He looks at HER with concern!
His concern for me is palpable, like a hand caressing my cheek.
She looks at HIM with concern!
He could feel her concern for him radiating like a lighthouse.
He vanishes!
It turns out that Mysterious Boy is Michael, named after the Archangel. He's only a Guardian Angel himself; he lives with his "brothers," Raphael, and Gabriel. They're all extraordinarily handsome, and they are so well-disguised (not). Way to stay the fuck under the radar. He is incapable of love! He shouldn't love! It is beyond his capacity for a heavenly being...but Michael can't help it! For the first time...he feels...EMOTIONS for the sexy Sophia.
No, not just hot but sexy as hell and— Wait, what? Sexy? Where in the hell did that come from?
But Michael is not alone in his desire for Seductive Sophia. There is a Demon Knight in Hell, and he wants her, too. Specifically, her soul, because why?
He had been tracking his lost lover’s soul and found it in Sophia.
So Dante has to go to HUGE GREAT DESPERATE STEPS in order to come back to Earth and win over her soul. He's not alone, his cohorts, Vaughn, Santiago and Wolfgangare coming with him to Earth. THEY MUST GET SOPHIA'S SOUL.
But first, they have to worry about what to wear. Vaughn, well...
So his wardrobe was chosen with care: black jeans and a long-sleeved black shirt buttoned at the throat. And for good measure, he wore a long black duster, a favorite from the old days.
Santiago's a little more down-to-earth. So to speak.
He opted for black skinny jeans with multicolored Converse high tops and a black T-shirt that said, I DIED FOR AN IRON MAIDEN.
Wolfgang...
He wore black jeans rolled at the cuffs, black combat boots, and a tight black T-shirt over his beefy chest. His hair had been cut shoulder length and gathered at the back of his head with a leather, noose-like strap.
Finally, Dante! He's got to look sharp for his long-lost lover.
Dante changed clothes three times before settling on black designer jeans and a charcoal mock turtleneck. After all, this was a special occasion. He should look nice and sophisticated but not like he was trying too hard.
*chokes with laughter*
AND FINALLY, NOW THAT THEY'RE ALL DRESSED, THEY CAN FINALLY LEAVE FOR THEIR MISSION.
“Now we go to America!” Dante announced the command he had been waiting years to say.
Or not.
Dante clenched his teeth. “Fine! To Italy. And then to Connecticut without another delay.”
Now do you see why I'm DNFing this book?
The Writing:
He seems disjointed from the others like a curious bystander.
Teeeeeeeeeeerrible. Littered with some mind-blogging metaphors...
- "Controlling Wolfgang’s demon was impossible, like taming a lion with a wet noodle."
- "That’s when it hits: a painful explosion in my chest like I had dynamite for dinner and it’s just now digesting."
- "I can already imagine my evening camped out on the couch, an array of books scattered about like a litter of teething puppies."
- The scar in my eyebrow? A sleeping caterpillar. I’ve checked it continuously for two weeks hoping one day it will turn butterfly and flit away.
Factual errors: Eastern accents are barely detectable, if at all. Los Angeles High school does not have a junior class size of 250. Try twice that. A person who can't breathe does not actually turn blue. They only have a blueish tinge to their face.
He was blue!” “As a Smurf!”
Spelling errors: Coco Chanel is the name of the woman who started the brand, it's not the brand itself. Furthermore, it's spelled Chanel, not Channel. A psychiatric ward is shortened to a "psych ward," not a "psyche ward".
Terrible dialogues: From outrageously absurd characters:
- “She’s their cousin. Hashtag—most fun person in the world!"
- "What’s up, teacup?"
- “Holy horndogs, Batman. I got Jordan. I’ll be sure to Brinks secure my thong.”
Sophia: The main character is fucking dumb. She wants to go to Stanford when she goes to college. I'm sorry to tell her she doesn't have a special snowflake's chance in the deepest pits of hell. She is a pastor's daughter who doesn't see the significance between all the supernatural shit she's been seeing and the fact that there are three angelically beautiful young brothers in her town with the names of Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. She cries at the drop of a hat. She is nasty, mentally calling people names, like a "Rent-a-Cop" with a "McBelly."
She was abused by an ex-boyfriend. It doesn't feel real, and I am the first person in the world to hop onto the victim-defending wagon. Her abuse feels superficial. The mental scars do not feel real. She only brings it up from time to time when she remembers it. There was no point to the inclusion of the abuse, and I found it offensive to victims of true abuse.
The Angels: Fucking dumb. Heaven can't see fit to give them a collective brain, much less three. They are so well-hidden that they can't think to disguise themselves under any other names but the three most famous motherfucking Angels in the Bible. Way to stay under the motherfucking radar. They can't hide how gloriously handsome they are? They're so fucking stupid that they can't save a guy who's choking on a piece of food.
I look and see Casey James laughing at his own joke. A moment later he stops, and his mouth opens and closes like a fish. His eyes gradually bulge in panic. Before I can think the words, He’s choking, Michael is there, wrapping his arms around Casey’s waist and hauling him out of the chair.
Three motherfucking Guardian Angels can't save a guy who's choking. What the fuck kind of incompetency is this? Casey James died. And the motherfucking angels are so fucking good at staying under the motherfucking radar that they bring the dead guy back to life in front of the entire fucking school.
“But he was dead!” I whisper. “And Raph didn’t do CPR!” We stop at my locker and I throw my books inside. “Well, he must have done something, right? I mean, Casey choked to death.” “But...Raph didn’t. You saw that he didn’t, right?”
The Romance: It has every romantic trope in the book, including a love triangle between a Guardian Angel and a Demon Knight. There is insta-love between the MC and the Angel. There is a hint of reincarnated soul mates between the MC and the Demon.
I had a little bit of an personal identity crisis while reading a novel...I had to set the book aside at one point to ask myself: Am I a horrible persI had a little bit of an personal identity crisis while reading a novel...I had to set the book aside at one point to ask myself: Am I a horrible person? Am I completely lacking in emotions, in empathy? Do I even have a heart? How else do I explain my complete lack of interest, and in fact, my dislike for the main character, someone who has been kidnapped and molested?
Maybe I didn't need to question my basest nature. Maybe it was just the book and its completely forgettable characters and plot.
The story is a sad one, a perfect example of how a child can be so easily programmed, a great example of Stockholm Syndrome. Callie has been on the run with her mess of a bipolar mother since she was 5. She has never been in regular school, she barely remembers her old life; they move around haphazardly, on her mother's whim. She has endured countless seedy motels, she has lived as a squatter, she has endured too many of her mother's questionable and abusive boyfriends. All she knows is that they are on the run because her mother has to keep her father from getting Callie back, because her father only wants Callie to spite her mother. They live out of suitcases.
At the beginning of the novel, they are again, on the run. Callie's mother gets caught due to a traffic violation which results in her discovery, and Callie is returned to her father, Greg, and his large, boisterous Greek family in Tarpon Springs. There, Callie tries to get readjusted to a semblance of a normal life, and we're supposed to be there with her as she overcomes her trauma, matures, and bonds with her family.
Well, no. It doesn't exactly happen in that exact manner. What actually happens is that Callie runs away from her very loving new family at every chance she gets to sleep with the local "man-whore." In the process, she worries her newfound family to no ends, and breaks a poor nice guy's heart, and does whatever the fuck she feels like, with no consideration to anyone but her bitch of an incarcerated mother. Oh, right. Stockholm Syndrome. Place your mother above all others, even if she's ruined your life. Gotcha!
I can't claim to know what it's like to be kidnapped, I can't claim to understand the complex psychology behind such a traumatic event, but as far as building a credible, somewhat likeable, complex character...this book completely failed for me.
Callie is simply not a likeable character. I feel bad for her, I truly do. What she has endured is beyond imagining, it is traumatic, it is horrifying, and I fruitlessly wish that nobody ever has to go through such an event. But this book is what it is, and beyond my sympathy of her past, the present Callie is not a person I like. She completely flaunts the rules. Yes, she has been on the run for so long, under her mother's supervision (which is really, no supervision at all), and she's used to being on her own...but this is another life, and Callie doesn't seem to understand that.
Callie has a new family, a really, really nice one. Her stepmother Phoebe, who is initially wary, but ultimately good at heart and trying her best to deal with a new member of the family, two new baby half-brothers who are annoying, but still cute as far as toddlers go, a really, really well-meaning father, Greg, who is in way over his head. Teenage daughters are problematic. Having one land in your lap after years of missing her...that's considerably harder to deal with. On top of that, this huge, huge extended Greek family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. It's overwhelming, but they love her, they missed her, they have always wanted her back...and Callie literally runs away to be with a boy.
There are rules in her new life, but Callie doesn't seem to understand that, even if it's made abundantly clear to her. School? Just a little bit to reimmerse her, please, darling girl? No. Callie's not ready for that! Nope, she doesn't want to go to school. What she IS ready for is partying and chilling with her friends and getting a job, so she can take long extended breaks and come back to work late because she's busy fucking Alex on his sponge-harvesting boat.
Curfew? Lol bitch please, what curfew? Rules are for people with normal childhoods, it seems. Callie stays out to sleep with hot Greek God Alex whenever she goddamn wants. She goes to parties and drinks and lies about it. And her poor, poor father, who has spent 12 years missing her and worrying about her and stressed out as all hell wondering where his daughter went missing without a word for hours? Think about HIS feelings? Nah. Alex!!!! WHOOOO! Hot Greek God Alex all the way.
Alex: Peter Pan Syndrome. Our man whore, our Greek God Alex just doesn't want to grow the fuck up. Oh, he's got *womp womp womp* proooooooooooblems man, but after hearing his explanation...nuh uh, I don't buy it. His excuses for not coming to visit his degenerative-disease-suffering, dying mom. His excuses for not being able to go to college? Weak. Wouldn't hold a drop of water. Weaker than the sponges that Alex dives for. Did I say sponges? Yeah. Alex has a wonderful career of diving for sponges to sell to tourists.
Kat: Callie's self-proclaimed BFF. This is my mental image of Kat.
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Yep. Overly attached girlfriend. She is the equivalent of an overly eager puppy. She has no sense of subtlety. She attaches herself onto Callie with all the suction cups of an octopus and does not let go. Kat's held onto an image of Callie & her playing when they were 4 years old and she has dreamed of Callie coming back and being her best friend ever since.
“This is you and me when we were four. When we were best friends...But I’ve spent all these years imagining what our friendship would have been like if your mom hadn’t taken you. In my head we had sleepovers and took gymnastics lessons and had first dates with twin brothers, which is hilarious because I don’t even know any twins. And when you came home, I hoped---”
Cuh-reeeeeeepy.
Callie is a local celebrity. Everyone knows she has been kidnapped, her return is known by everyone. Give the girl some room? Apparently, nobody told Kat. She clings onto Callie, takes her clothes-shopping, tries to set her up with a potential boyfriend, takes her on double dates...etc. Girl doesn't know the meaning of personal space.
The book wasn't altogether terrible, but I felt the romance aspect of it was completely overplayed, given how traumatized Callie had been when she was on the run. Callie's insta-attraction and subsequent behavior with Alex didn't feel real, and I felt like their interactions were merely sexual and no more than that. The thing is, the book tries to make it seem like there was more to Alex and Callie and that---I just didn't buy the romance.
I absolutely hated how she treated Connor, how she broke his heart. I remember standing next to my friend in 11th grade as she told a mutual friend that he was her "back up prom date." I remember the look on his face. It was a shitty, shitty thing to do, it is a shitty, shitty thing to say, and it is just another example of how utterly selfish and inconsiderate Callie is towards anyone who is inconvenient to her and what she wants.
I feel bad for Callie, but her previous abuses doesn't give Callie an excuse to be a life-long bitch, and the entire book, for me, was an account of how Callie was an asshole to everyone and got away with it....more
Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies
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Books:
new-adult
(5)
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