Rashika, The Book Owl

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Before I say anything else, I feel the need to point out that if you’re interested  in this book because it sounds ‘fun’, you might want to reconsider because it is anything but.

This is a book I was looking very forward to reading after having heard wonderful things about the author’s Gretchen Lowell series (to which I own the first book) and I wasn’t let down in the least. This book is very emotional, and at times even hard to read, because you become so overwhelmed. That's not really surprising once you realize that this book deals with serious issues like pedophilia and child pornography.

Kick was rescued a decade ago from a man who kidnapped her when she was 6 and sadly, she would never be the same again. Her time with the man has affected her in ways that can and WILL make you feel so emotional. What’s even worse is that somewhere in the back of her mind, he’ll be ‘daddy’ to her since her own father left barely 4 months after she was returned. In spite of all that, Kick is still a very strong female lead, especially given her circumstances. Once she was returned, she trained herself so that she would always be able to protect herself and that no one would ever be able to force her to go ANYWHERE. Kick can literally kick your ass and knows many ways to kill you without having any weapons on hand. That’s what grounds her.

She also spends a lot of time paying attention to Amber Alerts and trying to save other kids; the kids that might have otherwise never went missing if she hadn’t auto nuked the files on her abductor’s computer under his order.

Then she meets Bishop or, more appropriately, he sneaks into her house and finds her and gives her an opportunity to help save some of the kids that recently have gone missing. And so they go to places from Kick’s past and try to connect the dots to find the assholes who took these young children.

I think what makes this book even heartbreaking is the flashbacks we get of Kick’s past, from when she was Beth and we see how that has an affect on her presently. How when near the presence of her abductor, she forgets she’s Kick and feels like the helpless child who obeyed his orders. The feels.

What makes this book so strong, aside from Kick, is the entourage of secondary characters - from James to Bishop to Mel and to even Frank - they are so well-developed. None of them are flat. They are all well-rounded characters with complicated pasts of their own (in the case of James and Bishop) that make them who they are today. Even in the case of Mel. You may not like him, I mean, who would? But the author characterizes him so well that even though you may hate him, you see that he is a very complicated character who in spite of his perversions actually cares for Kick.

There's no romance in this book, but there is a hint of one which would definitely be interesting to see developed considering how complicated the characters are.

This book is a mixture of a plot and character-driven book, and both aspects of the novel are very strong. The plot was well-developed and while there are several questions that haven’t been answered, I am sure they will be in the future instalments. This book in itself was wrapped up very well leaving us with enough questions to look forward to in reading the sequel but nothing that would torment us *cough* cliffhanger *cough*.

I absolutely adored this book. It was moving and emotional and really, I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a gritty suspenseful read.