Wednesday 7 November 2012

Live Through This by Mindi Scott

From Goodreads: From the outside, Coley Sterling’s life seems pretty normal . . . whatever that means. It’s not perfect—her best friend is seriously mad at her and her dance team captains keep giving her a hard time—but Coley’s adorable, sweet crush Reece helps distract her. Plus, she has a great family to fall back on—with a mom and stepdad who would stop at nothing to keep her siblings and her happy.

But Coley has a lot of secrets. She won’t admit—not even to herself—that her almost-perfect life is her own carefully-crafted façade. That for years she’s been burying the shame and guilt over a relationship that crossed the line. Now that Coley has the chance at her first real boyfriend, a decade’s worth of lies are on the verge of unraveling.

In this unforgettable powerhouse of a novel, Mindi Scott offers an absorbing, layered glimpse into the life of an everygirl living a nightmare that no one would suspect.


I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this book deals with abuse – there is a very touching post on the author’s website detailing her reasons for writing the novel – and I found it to be a very honest and intelligent portrayal. I’m sure there are many readers who could be experiencing something similar and this goes a long way in showing how it’s not as black and white as people often believe it to be.

I really love Mindi Scott’s writing style and how quickly I get into the mind of her characters. Straight away, I found myself in Coley’s world – as uncomfortable as that was. You get to feel her confusion, how repulsed she is with herself, how embed the need to hide what is happening to her is, how much she blames herself and, at the same time, how much she does care and love the person doing this to her.

I admit I had a very clear idea in my mind after the opening chapter who I thought Coley was referring to – but I quickly started to feel a very strong sense of unease once I realized I had been mistaken. I don’t want to go into too much detail here because I think that might be too much of a spoiler – but I thought this aspect was cleverly done. What I also loved about this is that Mindi Scott shows how this situation is not clean cut. There is no violence, no movie style monster of pure evil – but it doesn’t change the fact that Coley is a victim here. She doesn’t ask for what happens to her and she is not responsible for it either. You can see how desperately Coley wants to believe it doesn’t happen – that it’s just a nightmare and not real – and she holds on to that.

I really loved Reece and the sweet relationship that builds between the two of them. I also adored Noah too – they have such a great friendship and he just cracked me up. The storyline involving Alejandra was good – was Coley punishing herself or blaming Alejandra for not seeing the truth? I think it was a clever way of showing that what was happening to Coley was beginning to affect other areas of her life – she was finding it harder to pretend it wasn’t happening.

I have to admit I felt like I needed a bit more at the end. In terms of Coley’s secret I felt the story ended on a positive note, but at the same time I wanted to follow that thread and see it unfold. I would definitely like to know what happened next – just to have a little bit more closure.

Having now read and loved both this and her previous novel Freefall I am really excited to see what Mindi Scott writes next!

 

1 comment:

Dazzling Mage said...

Woow! I'm really curious about this one now! Love your review.

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