✎𓂃“We leave here whole. We leave here together”
☆PSA!!
This book is DARK. It is SICK. It is INTENSE. I mean, we’re talking trigger warnings flying left, right, over, under, out my ass and back. These trigger warnings are there IMMEDIATELY:
↠Human Trafficking
↠Rape
↠Sexual Assault
↠Torture
↠Captivity
↠Kidnapping
Nothing is described in huge detail sexual assault-wise, basically things are said matter-of-factly or alluded to, but they exist and the horror is still real. If any of the above things are too much for you, def don’t read! 🙅🏻♀️
☆Quick Summ:
Noelle Meyer (ayooo love when I see my last name lol) and Evan Sinclair, are enemies for a very good reason: Evan’s father murdered Noelle’s mother and got away with it. But during their senior year of high school, these two are horribly forced to work together to find a way to escape their abductors. They’re caged. They have to make disgusting decisions to inflict torture on themselves, or on the other. It is completely DISTURBING, but Noelle and Evan will forever be linked by this shared experience. Years later, they work together to solve the mess of who truly abducted and tortured them.
☆My Thoughts:
Mia Sheridan REALLY throws you into it right away. She really said, “imma do everything I can to turn you off in the first 20%”! The book begins with Noelle and Evan in their captivity, and while it was so beyond disturbing, I couldn’t stop reading. I knew there’d be an “other side” with a flash-forward at some point due to the synopsis, I just needed to keep reading to get there! Yes, it’s some unspeakable stuff. Yes, it’s not for everyone.
The other half of the plot deals with their romantic entanglement which I honestly enjoyed. It’s muddy and messy–everything these two characters went through BROKE my heart. But they find something in each other that is seemingly both unexplainable and comforting. I liked how they formulated a code to communicate with each other during their captivity, taking childhood songs and switching out words with what they were really trying to say. Clever, and prevented the sickos watching from figuring it all out.
There are a couple twists, and a HUGE trope at the 50% mark. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but my jaw still dropped. Others have commented that it felt unnecessary, but I felt it just added to the whole murkiness of Noelle and Evan’s lives.
I overall really enjoyed this thriller. Parts had me on the edge of my seat, parts had me thinkin I was a pro detective sus-ing out the villains LOL. 🕵🏻 Sheridan drops clues throughout that had me evil laughing like I had finally solved it all…and then NOPE I was wrong!
☆Pacing and POVs:
After sitting on this review for a bit, I feel like my initial 4 stars might be a little generous. Maybe a 3.5, rounded up? While the first 20% flew by for me, the rest of the book felt like it lagged a lot more. I’m not sure if it was the time jump, or that the plot wasn’t moving along fast enough, but I wanted that same, edge-of-my-seat thrill I had in the beginning throughout the rest of the book.
This is written in multiple 3rd person POVs: Noelle, Evan, The Collector, and two later captives Grim and Cedro. I’m not sure the last two were needed, possibly could have been told from The Collector’s POV to simplify.
☆The Characters and the Romance:
Tbh, The Collector was the most intriguing. I loved seeing his POV as a puppet master throughout the story. He’s devious, twisted, sooo dark gray.
Evan’s father is a POS. That is all I’ll say about that!
Noelle and Evan’s romance made a lot of sense to me! They were enemies, kidnapped and thrown together, and went through the most horrifying things that NO ONE should ever know. They have a shared experience that is so messy–the only people who would ever understand is each other. Their feelings are caught up in using each other to forget, to feel, and then what is truly real. It’s wholly contradictory, but I loved seeing how they had to work on themselves individually and together! Unfortunately though, once they’re adults in the timeline, we have the dreaded miscommunication trope. Noelle, come on. Smh.
☆My Final Thoughts:
Again, take a good look at the trigger warnings if you decide to read this one, just to be better prepared. I came here bc my GR friend Sarai rated this high and I totally get it!! I feel like I have a black heart tho and nothing really phases me 🫠
☆Quotes:
✎𓂃“You’ve been rented.”
✎𓂃“Rental request. She was nothing more than a rental now. Like a car, or a bike, or a hotel room. A thing to use temporarily.”
✎𓂃“Werewolves have fangs. But they also have pelts. I hate your guts. Go fuck yourself.” (LOVED this poem Noelle wrote for one of her renters)
✎𓂃“If all the little snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes, oh, if I the little snowflakes, were candy love and milkshakes, oh what a you that would be.” IYKYK 🫶
✎𓂃“All he'd known was that he both wanted to run away from her and the feelings she stirred up in him, and simultaneously couldn't bear the thought of letting her go.”
✎𓂃“He didn't function well with a broken heart, and Noelle Meyer was the only one capable of giving him one.”
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Pre Review:
4 stars 💫 and rtc!!
omg this book was so intense it’s gonna take a bit to slow my heart!!!