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Sunday, March 15, 2020

REVIEW⇢ SAVE YOURSELF

BY KELLY BRAFFET




    SYNOPSIS FROM AUTHORS WEBSITE⇣
    Patrick Cusimano is in a bad way. His father is in jail; he works the midnight shift at a grubby convenience store; and his brother’s girlfriend, Caro, has taken their friendship to an uncomfortable new level.  On top of all that, he can’t quite shake the attentions of Layla Elshere, a goth teenager who befriends Patrick for reasons he doesn’t understand and doesn’t fully trust. The temptations these two women offer are pushing Patrick to his breaking point.
    Meanwhile, Layla’s little sister, Verna, is suffering through her first year of high school.  She’s become a prime target for her cruel classmates, not just because of her strange name and her fundamentalist parents: Layla’s bad-girl rep proves to be too a huge shadow for Verna, so she falls in with her sister’s circle of outcasts and misfits whose world is far darker than she ever imagined.
    Kelly Braffet’s characters, indelibly portrayed and richly varied, are all on their own twisted path to finding peace.  The result is a novel of unnerving power—darkly compelling, addictively written, and shockingly honest.


    BOOK TAGS


     REALISTIC GRIT-LIT
     DARKISH AND COMPELLING
     YA-ISH MIXED WITH ADULT-ISH
     DEALING WITH MANY HOT-TOPICS
    ⤏ WITH EVERYTHING FROM BULLYING TO SOMETHING LIKE MASOCHISM

      BOOK DETAILS⇣


      AUDIO PERFORMED BY MICHAEL GOLDSTROM
      NARRATION RATING  4/5
      BOOK COVER MEH...
      SETTING RATCHETSBURG, PA
      SOURCE LIBBY AUDIOBOOK (LIBRARY)
      AUDIOBOOK LENGTH 11 HOURS, 40 MINUTES


      MY THOUGHTS⇣


      The lives of all these people are on a collision course...and this is the sorted story of how they arrive there.  You know some shit is going to hit-the-fan in a town called Ratchetsburg...

      While some of the characters are teens, the story itself is rather heavy.  If you are looking for a happy ending...this isn't it.  It's all about getting the short-end of the straw in life.  It's raw and not pretty.  It's both deeply disturbing and deeply affecting at the same time.  It even almost pulled me out of my slump (I haven't been moved enough to give anything 5 stars lately)...not quite, but close.  Hopefully, I find a book that does, soon.

      The Audio is performed really well by Michael Goldstrom, they just should have had a female narrator for the female voices.  It would have upped the narration rating to a full five stars, then.


      MY RATING ✰STARS✰


      BREAKDOWN⇣

      Plot 4.2/5
      Characters 4/5
      The Feels 4/5
      Pacing 3.5/5
      Addictiveness 3.5/5
      Theme or Tone 4.2/5
      Flow (Writing Style) 4.5/5
      World-Building 4.3/5
      Originality 4.3/5
      Ending 4.5/5






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