"to suffer is as human as to breathe"

Book: The Ruinous Sweep by Time Wynn-Jones | My Rating: ★ ★ ★

Synopsis: On the night Donovan Turner is thrown out of a car on a highway in the middle of nowhere, he can barely remember his own name, let alone the past twenty-four hours. Where is he? Where is his girlfriend, Bee? In an attempt to flag down the next passing car, he startles the driver, causing a fatal accident. With sirens in the distance and the lingering feeling that he’s running from something — or someone — Donovan grabs the dead driver’s briefcase and flees. Meanwhile, Bee is fighting for Dono’s life every bit as much as he is. But when the police show up and hint that he is the prime suspect in a murder, Bee is determined to put together the pieces of what happened and clear his name. With echoes of Dante’s Divine Comedy, this harrowing journey through hell and back is a page-turning tale of guilt, retribution, love, and redemption.

My Review: I received this ARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review!

I was very curious throughout this book, a boy who’s lost his memories, who may be a possible murder suspect? YES. I am really interested in crim and unsolved mysteries, so this type of story is certainly appealing to me. I think my main problem with this book was Donovan’s POVs. In the beginning I was pretty invested in his chapters, but as they went on I started thinking ‘WHY do we need this aspect?’. Everything did link up in the end, but in particular I felt like his scenes with who I presume was Kali in his room and as he was leaving was unnecessary and had me rolling my eyes. I assume that Donovan’s experiences are the Divine Comedy-esque part of the story, and I feel like if I had read the Divine Comedy I would’ve appreciated this aspect more. I understood what was happening, but honestly after about 120 pages in I was just much more interested in Bee’s POV.

I did really like the second half of this novel, it was what I was wanting it to be from the beginning- full of mystery solving, tense emotions, and action. This story was face-paced, which I really liked, and full of suspenseful, action-filled scenes. Overall, I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either- the second half of the novel bumped my rating from a 2/2.5 stars to a 3 stars.

BOOK REVIEWS

Book: Ruthless by Carolyn Lee Adams | My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ½

TRIGGER WARNINGS: abduction, mentions/threats of rape

Synopsis: Ruth Carver has always competed like her life depends on it. Ambitious. Tough. Maybe even mean. It’s no wonder people call her Ruthless.
When she wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pickup truck, she realizes she has been entered into a contest she can’t afford to lose.
At a remote, rotting cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ruth’s blindfold comes off and she comes face-to-face with her captor. A man who believes his mission is to punish bad girls like Ruth. A man who has done this six times before.
The other girls were never heard from again, but Ruth won’t go down easy. She escapes into the wilderness, but her hunter is close at her heels. That’s when the real battle begins. That’s when Ruth must decide just how far she’ll go in order to survive.
Back home, they called her Ruthless. They had no idea just how right they were.

My Review: This book brought feelings out of me that I’ve never experienced from any book before. If you’re looking for a good survival story this is it. Plus, there’s no Stockholm Syndrome involved in this novel, which I was relieved about.

This book is an excellent story of survival and reads like one: there are beautiful moments that she shares with the moon, her only friend out in the wilderness and the only one who will ever understand, but this story is about escape and the thoughts that come into Ruth’s mind and what keep her going.
I want to briefly talk about the two main characters. Ruth Carver is a well developed character, she is tougher than most and proves it over and over again both in the present and in flashbacks that occurred before her abduction. She is strong willed and a winner- she strives to win and won’t settle for anything less. A lot of authors who create characters with these sorts of traits tend to leave it at this: a strong, emotionally cold bad ass. Adams, however, gave Ruth raw emotion. No matter how strong a person she was, she broke down, she panicked, but she managed to overcome her fear and regain control over herself, and at times over others as well. Not only is she set on living, but on bringing justice to the Wolfman for what he’s done to her and the six girls before her. Wolfman is revolting, disturbing, creepy; everything you think of when you think of when you envision a serial-killer/rapist. I felt no sympathy for him at any point, nor does the author try to convince you to feel sorry for him. He is meant to be a sick bastard with no morals and the author does not shy away from showing that. Which is something I liked, I would’ve hated this novel had the author tried to make the reader feel some form of sympathy for him, because in no way, shape, or form would he deserve it. The more I read, the more I hated him.

The entirety of this book is an intense ride, particularly the last thirty pages or so, but the ending was what really got me. It was heartbreaking and incredibly emotional; I was shaking and crying for the last twenty pages or so of this book. In the beginning of the book, I was unsure of what I would rate it by the end; my guess was a 3.5, but the last hundred pages were a game changer and pulled out some of the most fearful and intense feelings I’ve ever felt from a novel. This is a short read (248 pages) and well worth the time.