Review: Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn

Book Title: Complicit

Author: Stephanie Kuehn

Release Date: June 24th, 2014

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Genre: YA Thriller

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Book Link: Goodreads

Pre-Order Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Two years ago, fifteen-year-old Jamie Henry breathed a sigh of relief when a judge sentenced his older sister to juvenile detention for burning down their neighbor’s fancy horse barn. The whole town did. Because Crazy Cate Henry used to be a nice girl. Until she did a lot of bad things. Like drinking. And stealing. And lying. Like playing weird mind games in the woods with other children. Like making sure she always got her way. Or else.

But today Cate got out. And now she’s coming back for Jamie.

Because more than anything, Cate Henry needs her little brother to know this one simple truth: she’s not the crazy one and never has been.

He is.

Disclaimer: I received this e-galley from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Review:

By the time you read this I will have read and reviewed the first Stephanie Kuehn book Charm & Strange. I just knew the moment I read the blurb of this one, that I had to have it.The blurb sent chills up my spine. So when NetGalley approved me, I was super excited about it and I dove right in.I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but what I got was 256 pages of pure awesome mind-fuckery.

Jamie has been dealt a rough hand. As a child he lived with his mother and big sister Cate. Until the day that his mother was shot and killed right in front of him & Cate. After that, they went into foster care until rich people Angie and Malcolm Henry adopted them. It’s very hard for school-age kids to be adopted but this was a special case. Angie and Malcolm had recently lost their two children in a traffic accident.

At first Cate seems like she’s the well adjusted one. But Jamie starts to hear stories. Stories about how his sister is making other kids do stuff.Stuff that they don’t want to do. Of course Jamie is loyal to his sister, but then an incident changes that. An incident that shows that all those kids saying those strange things may not be so far off.

Then the fire happens and Cate is eventually charged with the crime. Finally, Jamie can breathe easier. “Crazy Cate” is in a juvenile detention center where she can’t get to him. But nothing is the same anymore. He’s an outcast, even his former best friend Scooter won’t talk to him. After all it was Scooter’s girlfriend who was horrifically burned in the fire that Cate set which also killed horses.

And then he meets Jenny. Sweet Jenny, kind Jenny. Jenny doesn’t know about Cate because her family just moved here. So to her, Jamie is just a normal guy. When she finds out about Cate from the other kids at school, she doesn’t shy away from Jamie.

Now Jamie is getting calls from his sister. He hasn’t spoken to her in two years and now she’s out and constantly hassling him over the phone.Jamie doesn’t want to ruin what he’s got going with Jenny but he’s also trying to recover certain memories. Memories that only Cate would be able to relate to.

It isn’t until he comes face to face with Cate for the first time in 2 years, that he starts realizing things. Memories that had been long repressed creep back into the forefront of his brain. Suddenly, everything he thought was true is being called into question.

Malcolm & Angie played pretty minor parts. Angie was in it more than Malcolm was. They were okay people. Angie was a good mom to the kids and when Malcolm was around he was good to both Cate &
Jamie. They definitely grieved for their birth children, Madison & Graham. Even going as far as encouraging Cate & Jamie into doing the kinds of things that Madison and Graham enjoyed. Such as horseback riding & playing the piano.

I think they tried to protect Jamie in the end. They had already lost their biological children and their adopted daughter was lost to her troubles. So they focused on keeping Jamie safe and happy. Even going as far as to baby him a bit. Especially when it came to the nerve damage to his hands.His hands had started giving him problems the night of the fire. Now whenever he was stressed out, the issues flared up again.

I just cannot believe what a ride this was. And the mind-fuckery? Totally crazy and this book messed with my mind in the best possible way. Oh man this book was fantastic.It was a total page turner because you never quite knew what was going to happen next and it was oftentimes, totally unexpected.

Thrillers are harder to review because there’s often no true feels in the books. There’s craziness and mind-blowing and all sorts of other things, but no true feels. With that said, this book will be getting the full 5 stars. It was totally awesome and Stephanie Kuehn has become another one of those auto-buy authors. Which means, I’ll buy anything this woman writes. I definitely plan on ordering a finished copy of this book.

Review: OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu

Book Title: OCD Love Story

Author: Corey Ann Haydu

Publish Date: July 23rd, 2013

Published By: Simon Pulse

Genre: YA

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Book Link: Goodreads

Purchase Link: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Synopsis (from Goodreads): 

When Bea meets Beck, she knows instantly that he’s her kind of crazy. Sweet, strong, kinda-messed-up Beck understands her like no one else can. He makes her feel almost normal. He makes her feel like she could fall in love again.

But despite her feelings for Beck, Bea can’t stop thinking about someone else: a guy who is gorgeous and magnetic… and has no idea Bea even exists. But Bea knows a lot about him. She spends a lot of time watching him. She has a journal full of notes. Some might even say she’s obsessed.

Bea tells herself she’s got it all under control. But this isn’t a choice, it’s a compulsion. The truth is, she’s breaking down…and she might end up breaking her own heart.

Disclaimer: I won this book in a Summer Giveaway from Reading Teen.

Review:

As soon as I saw the synopsis for this book, I knew I had to have it. So I entered the giveaway and hoped that if I won,this book would still be available. And it was! I may or may not have jumped up and down like a crazy person.

I was excited to read this for the simple reason that I am OCD,but my OCD-ness is much milder than those depicted in this book. I was hoping that this book would do the tough subject justice as OCD is a very hard thing to deal with. To my pleasant surprise, OCD was handled very well and accurately throughout this book. It showed that OCD can manifest itself into different levels. It’s not just constant hand-washing. It’s far more than that.I was also worried that it would gloss over some of the unpleasantness of OCD and just pretend like it wasn’t a big deal. 

Again I was pleasantly surprised. The author handled it with candor and honesty. No sugarcoating here. She did an excellent job of getting to the nitty gritty about this stuff. While making sure that the portrayal of OCD was accurate,she also created likable characters. Despite not being as severely affected as Bea, I saw so much of myself in Bea. I didn’t take it to the level that she did,but my compulsions are very similar.

At times I found myself frustrated with Bea’s friend Lisha. I know it’s not easy to watch a friend deal with OCD,but she didn’t seem to realize that Bea didn’t want to have OCD. She wanted to be normal. Lisha seemed to be embarrassed by her towards the end. I kept yelling at the book (well technically at Lisha) that Bea needed support. She didn’t need her only female friend to be,excuse my french, a total bitch. I really wished that Lisha tried to understand OCD a bit better. She needed to be aware that Bea didn’t want to have to do all these things. She didn’t want to be essentially controlled by her compulsions.

Oh Beck, how awesome he was. Despite his OCD-ness, I really liked him and I think he really liked Bea as well. I think at times he grew frustrated with Bea’s apparent refusal to work on the compulsions. But I also think that Bea worried about Beck’s various compulsions.

I liked the other characters in the group as well. Watching the progress they made in therapy was wonderful. I think reading this book could definitely silence those who don’t put much stock into therapy. I liked Dr. Pat too. There were times, albeit, only a few times that I really wondered if she was really helping these teens or if they were helping themselves and each other.

Austin and Sylvia,the objects of Bea’s obsession were quirky. I am still not sure how I felt about them. Yes they were kind to Bea which was a good thing. Towards the end,they really started to drive me crazy.

Overall, I really, really loved this book. It was full of likable characters and I identified so much with the main female character. It’s not going to be a book for everyone because it’s definitely not a light and fluffy read. It’s raw and gritty and above all, it’s real. Five stars to this relatable book and wonderfully real characters.