REVIEW: Ocean Kills by Jade Hart

Title: Ocean Kills
Author: Jade Hart
Series: Ocean Breeze #1
Pages: 404
Publisher: Self-Published
Date Published: December 8, 2012
Format: eBook
Source: Received from Author for Honest Review

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Around the world, murderers and rapists pick off the innocent. Killing loved ones, separating families, and ruining lives.

As an eight-year-old girl, Ocean witnessed her family’s massacre and something altered inside her. Twisting her genetic code… unlocking an ability to teleport.

Ocean Breeze was never destined to be normal, especially having been named after air-freshener. She’s a shadow, a ghost—a dark saviour of the innocent. Armed with a switchblade in her bra, and a box-cutter in her pocket, she hunts the filth of the world.

Callan Bliss is a Sydney police officer whose skill-set is far above that of a normal cop. All his fellow officers see is a hard worker who loves to catch perpetrators and surf, but that’s because they don’t know about his past. When Callan arrests a suspicious-looking prostitute, he comes face-to-face with a self-confessed vigilante, and suddenly, his secrets aren’t so easy to keep silent.

Ocean hates the police with a passion, and has no intention of being held captive by a cop, even if he is sexy as hell. Teleporting from under his nose, Ocean hunts her next target—a man responsible for the largest sex ring in South Africa—and now he’s about to die. But she doesn’t count on Callan giving chase, nor the body-quaking lust that consumes them. However, Ocean's dark hobbies take precedence over what her heart wants—her thirst for murdering is killing her too, and not even Callan can save her.

When Ocean Breeze (yes, that is her real name!) was eight years old she witnessed the extremely brutal murder of her family.  Something about the torment and torture she endured altered something inside of her.  The ability to teleport was unlocked in her.  Since then she has worked to keep the type of people that killed her family off the streets.  She stalks and kills the men that murder and rape and then teleports out of the scene.  But killing comes with a price.  With every life she takes she becomes less herself.  She becomes cold and uncaring.  Ocean knows that killing these men will eventually kill her very soul, but she feels she owes it to the would-be victims of these monsters, and she's unwilling to stop.

What I Liked:

*  I love Ocean's character.  She truly believes in what she does.  She's ruthless and angry, but she does what she does to save people.  Although she doesn't always make the right choices, her heart is in the right place.

*  Callan Bliss...Aussie.  Blonde.  Surfer.  Cop.  Do I really need to go on? 

*  The chemistry between Ocean and Callan...holy smokes!  Hot!

*  Maurice Green is like a father to Ocean.  He found her on the street and took her in.  He has some secrets still left untold, but it's obvious how much he adores Ocean.  He supports her decision to hunt and kill monsters, but he doesn't necessarily agree with her.  I love how supportive he is even though it breaks his heart.

*  The story:  I love the story!  Victim turned vigilante killer goes after sex trafficing ring...action, adventure and revenge.  It's a great plot.

What I Disliked:

*  Ocean Kills is a long book! I usually like a good long story, but with this one I felt like a lot of it dragged a bit.  Several times I found myself saying, "What?!  Where did that come from?"  Big sections of the book had no significance to the full story and could have been cut.  It would have helped with the overall flow.

*  Way too many quirky cliched sayings!   

Overall: 

Ocean Kills was a very enjoyable read.  It kept me up until the early morning hours, and that is the evidence of a great story for me.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in this series.

ARC REVIEW: Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

 

 

Title: Hopeless

Author: Colleen Hoover
Pages: 391
Publisher: Self-Published
Date Published: December 19, 2012
Format: eBook
Source: Received from Author for Honest Review

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Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

My Thoughts:

 

There is absolutely no way that I will be able to write a review that will do justice to how Hopeless truly made me feel.  I've read dozens of reviews that talked about how they read Hopeless in one sitting, never putting the book down.  It was totally the opposite for me.  The more I read, the more I had to pause.  Not because I didn't want to continue, but because my emotions were going crazy.  Even when I wasn't reading, Hopeless is all I thought about.  It consumed me and left me gasping for air.  It made heart skip a beat, only to send it pounding erratically later.  Emotionally, I simply couldn't keep up.  All of my emotions are still a jumbled up mess.  I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry.  I needed to scream in fury and frustration, and I needed a hug.  A real hug, the kind where all of your pent up feelings burst free, and you wonder how you can even continue to stand upright. I loved every single word of Hopeless, and I hated every single word. There is nothing about Hopeless that I would change, yet I want to change everything. I know this makes no sense, and until you read Hopeless for yourself you really won't understand. I loved this book completely, but I have never had a fictional story break me so utterly. 

“It's amazing what the sound of a voice you've been longing to hear can do to your heart. He spoke five words just now, but in the time it took him to speak those five words, my heart was shredded and minced, then placed back inside my chest with the expectation that it should somehow know how to beat again.”

Sky is one of the most amazing characters I've ever met. She is so fragile, and she doesn't even realize it. From the outside looking in you see a sheltered, but normal teen.  She has a somewhat normal family life with her adopted mother, Karen, and her best friend, Six, lives next door.  While she puts up the front of a semblance of normalcy, she admits to having no feelings at all when it comes the boys she's had in her life.  But, all of that changes when she meets Holder.  He is the first guy that has ever given her that sense of butterflies, to make her heart skip a beat.  She finds herself swooning over a guy for the first time, yet there is also something about him that terrifies her.

 

“I can already tell he isn't the kind of guy a girl gets a simple crush on. He's the kind of guy you fall hard for, and the thought of that terrifies me.”

Dean Holder has his own demons. He has a bad boy reputation, but no one knows the real Holder. When he meets Sky he's drawn to her. Everything about Holder screams savior, yet he needs saving himself. Together, Sky and Holder open a floodgate of heart-breaking emotions, and they have no choice but to cling to each other and see it all through to the end. 

“You have to let it go. You can hold on to the hate and the love and even the bitterness, but you have to go of the blame. The blame is what's tearing you down, babe."

The dynamics of the relationship between Sky and Holder are mesmerizing. I love that even in the most messed up of situations Holder can manage to make Sky laugh. The connection between the two of them is so intense. I love the way Holder brings out such raw feelings in Sky. He manages to peel back the protective shell that Sky has around herself. He makes her feel.  

“We won’t go any further than this, I promise. But please don’t ask me to stop where we already are. I need to watch you and I need to hear you because the fact that I know you’re actually feeling this right now is so fucking amazing. You feel incredible and this feels incredible and please. Just… please.”

“And once again in my new world full of heartache and lies, this hopeless boy somehow finds a way to make me smile.”

Hopeless is dark. It's raw and heart-breaking, and it will leave you sobbing.  Just when you think you can't handle any more truth, things get uglier. When you think you have it all figured out...you don't.  But, it's also an amazingly beautiful story about friendship, love and truth and uncovering all of your scars so that you can learn to heal.  When you think it's all about to fall apart, the pieces begin to come together.  I fell completely in love with this book, even while it was breaking my heart into a million pieces.  Hopeless is a story that will forever be etched in my heart. 

 

 

 

   

REVIEW: Rape Girl by Alina Klein

Title:  Rape Girl
Author:  Alina Klein
Pages:  126
Publisher:  Myrick Marketing & Media, LLC
Publishing Date:  June 5, 2012
Format:  eBook
Source:  Received from publisher via NetGalley
Buy It:  Amazon or B&N

Valerie always wanted to be the smart girl. The pretty girl. The popular girl.  But not the rape girl.

That’s who she is now. Rape Girl. Because everyone seems to think they know the truth about what happened with Adam that day, and they don’t think Valerie’s telling it.

Before, she had a best friend, a crush, and a close-knit family. After, she has a court case, a support group, and a house full of strangers.

The real truth is, nothing will ever be the same.

Rape Girl is the compelling story of a survivor who does the right thing and suffers for it. It is also the story of a young woman’s struggle to find the strength to fight back.

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Valerie wants what all high school girls want.  She wants to be popular, she wants to fit in and she wants to date that cute guy.  When Valerie's mother goes out of town she and her best friend, Mimi, decide to throw a party.  Things spiral out of control pretty fast and both girl end up extremely drunk.  The last thing Valerie expects when she's nursing her hangover the next morning is to wake up to her crush, Adam, undressing her.  When she reports him everyone, even Mimi, thinks she's lying. 

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't seem to connect with Valerie.  I felt like I should be angry for her and I should feel sorry for her, but there wasn't enough back story for me to really relate to the situation.  The book was more about her social demise than it was the emotional turmoil she had to deal with after the rape.  And since we don't really know her before the rape it's hard to think of her as anything other than "rape girl".  Her mother's breakdown actually felt a little more real to me.  She feels guilty that she wasn't there to protect her daughter, and there is nothing she can do to protect her from the gossip.  I found myself sympathizing with her, maybe because I'm a mother.  Just when the book started to feel like it was picking up I was left with an ending that had a lot to be desired.  While I didn't dislike it, Rape Girl wasn't as good as I had hoped.

2 Stars * *