The General Store

by A.L. Moore

To the fresh eyes of sheltered teen, Justice Asher, the dangers of the world are a welcome and exciting distraction to her boring existence. At seventeen, she is bored with her high school boyfriend of three years, and his careful, inexperienced hands. Life is a yawn of predictability, filled with reruns and played out video games. She is on the verge of a meltdown when the girl who provided fuel for her adolescent fantasies, Robyn, rolls back into town on the back of a sleek, midnight black motorcycle.
Robyn is a hell raising college dropout with a rotating door for men. Prepubescent Justice lived vicariously through her, sneaking glances in fogged car windows from her bedroom window. Justice desperately wants to be a part of that world—a world where time doesn’t stop at midnight. She is drawn to the roaring, angry cry of the chromed bikes that alarm her neighborhood at all hours. When she finds out Robyn is working at The General Store in town, she wastes no time applying for an open position. What she doesn’t know is that Robyn’s world is more than hot, muscled guys on fast bikes, and The General Store is selling more than candy and soft drinks.
Join Justice as she is swept up in a world of sex and drugs that steal her innocence and very nearly cost her life.

325 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 23, 2019

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is true to life. unfortunate young people looking for something get dragged into wrong things.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I NEED MORE!
The description in this book sucked me into the story! I could practically feel what the characters were experiencing. That being said, the heat between Liam and Justice is unreal! I had butterflies. There were times I wanted to shake Justice for being so naive, but that comes with the age. This book is a great example of how quickly teenagers can get in over their heads in today's world.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book is exchange for my honest review.

The General Store by A.L. Moore is a story about a bored-with-life, naïve 17-year old girl making exceptionally bad decisions, getting herself into serious trouble while falling in love lust with a hot guy who is (if I’m honest) bad for her. I was frustrated to a large degree with the main character, Justice, throughout the book and assume others will be as well. But where that frustration would usually cause me to dread finishing a book (one of the reasons I haven’t read much over the past few years TBH), I felt differently about this book in that regard. Outside of the frustration with the MC, I was intrigued with the story. It kept my attention with just enough suspense to keep me on the edge of my seat. Like most readers, I always try to guess how a story will end, and while this does end as expected, the path to get there wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be.

It’s the summer before Justice’s senior year of high school. She’s been dating her boyfriend (the all-american boy scout saint boy-next-door) for four years, never getting past first base (Who wouldn’t be bored with that??) She has parents that love each other, obviously love her, and seem to love her boyfriend at least as much. She’s spoiled but no more than many teens today, and like most people, she sees only the green pastures of other peoples’ lives and longs to have what looks appealing on the surface…and boy does she ignore obvious flags and make super bad decisions in order to obtain those things.

The thing is, I couldn’t hate this book because of Justice when I know plenty of Justices in real life. Hell, I WAS a Justice a hundred years ago, before we had as many dangers lurking around us as we do now. It can be easy for young people that are closely monitored by well-intentioned parents to go out into the world assuming all people are good, law-abiding citizens, and being naïve, those young people usually assume that everyone else lives and believes the same as they do. Many have the “it will never happen to me” mentality about too many things as well. So yeah, I was frustrated with Justice for making poor decision after poor decision, but mostly in the same way I’m frustrated with the real-life Justices. There were exceptions to this, though. For example, I didn’t think it was realistic at all that Justice kept going back to the cabin after Tyler drugged her that first time. I wish that had happened after she was already in too deep to walk away. I also think most people (regardless of age) would have connected drug dealing way faster than she did. There are plenty of other things as well, but if you read the book, you don’t need me to recap them all.

The main reason I gave the story 3 stars is that I felt the ending was rushed. I have questions that I wish had been addressed – and I feel that they easily could have been. When the detective told Justice that the other girls wouldn’t talk, did he mean Robyn and Tonya or the other girls that were sold? Were those other girls recovered? (On this subject, it seems like the story should have referenced a news story or something to let us know that Justice should be somewhat aware of the very real dangers going on in her town. Without that, I could only assume she wasn’t aware of anything like that in her immediate town.) Did Robyn know about all of the other girls who were sold? Did she (Robyn) set Justice up to be sold? I felt like Tonya 100% knew about it all, but she was Tyler’s sister so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to assume Robyn was involved and introduced Justice to Tyler for that purpose. I also needed a better explanation as to how Liam got away with no sentence when every other person involved went to prison. In the beginning, I expected Liam to end up being an undercover cop, but at the end when Justice kept waiting for him to at least drive by her house, I thought she would figure out he was involved in it all – including selling her - and playing her the entire time. That would have made the story much more believable to me. What 24-year old man would be interested in a naïve 17-year old girl – outside of taking her virginity? Anyway, that’s just my opinion.But overall, I’m glad I took the time to read the book. It was an entertaining story and definitely worth reading, especially if you have more time available to read during this social distancing situation.

[Neha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an interesting read. I might even put this book into a fantasy. Do I have a problem with Justice? For sure. I mean what person in their right mind does not see the problem that they are putting themselves into? But as I said I will put consider this book as a fantasy that I will never be able to fathom.

Now coming back to writing. The book is written amazingly. It keeps you engaged and wanting more. I was definitely curious as to what is the next unthinkable thing that will happen. Honestly, it exceeded my imagination. I knew bad things will happen and I was hoping there will be no happy ending. However, the author has managed to put an ending that I don't think any rational person would ever pick. Justice proves beyond doubt that some teenagers can and will go beyond their capacity to get what they want. If any part of this book would be real I guess one can understand the mentality of most of the parents and politicians who blame women for anything and everything that befalls them. I do not want to start a discussion here, however, this book (apart from the end of course) could be used as a guide as to why sometimes it is a good idea to listen to your parents and be aware of your situations.

I hope whoever reads this book does not fantasize about becoming like Justice.

[Jacquelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm giving this book a 3-stars out of 5. It's not a bad book, but it really wasn't for me. I was truly annoyed by the lead female. All of her troubles were brought on because she was "bored" with everything in her life; boyfriend, parents, the town she lived in. The main couple of the series skeeved me out because of the age difference, this is in spite of the author's last-minute "She's of legal consent" hail Mary that came after several mentions of the hero being older than the heroine but never quite settling into revealing his age until near the last pages.

My potato is someone else's puhtato, hence the 3 stars. Others will probably read and enjoy it.