Series: The Edge of Never #1
Author: J.A. Redmerski
Genre: New Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Createspace
Publication Date: November 15, 2012
Source: Gifted. Thank you!
Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett had always been one to think out-of-the-box, who knew she wanted something more in life than following the same repetitive patterns and growing old with the same repetitive life story. And she thought that her life was going in the right direction until everything fell apart.
Determined not to dwell on the negative and push forward, Camryn is set to move in with her best friend and plans to start a new job. But after an unexpected night at the hottest club in downtown North Carolina, she makes the ultimate decision to leave the only life she’s ever known, far behind.
With a purse, a cell phone and a small bag with a few necessities, Camryn, with absolutely no direction or purpose boards a Greyhound bus alone and sets out to find herself. What she finds is a guy named Andrew Parrish, someone not so very different from her and who harbors his own dark secrets. But Camryn swore never to let down her walls again. And she vowed never to fall in love.
But with Andrew, Camryn finds herself doing a lot of things she never thought she’d do. He shows her what it’s really like to live out-of-the-box and to give in to her deepest, darkest desires. On their sporadic road-trip he becomes the center of her exciting and daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But will Andrew’s dark secret push them inseparably together, or tear them completely apart?
Find The Edge of Never online
So, I kind of feel like I'm missing something here. I just . . . didn't like this book. Like, at all. And from what I've seen on Goodreads, this book has a huge following and tons of people like it (I mean, it has an overall rating of 4.27. That's pretty damn good). From what I've read about it, I thought this would be an easy four or even five star rating from me but I couldn't even get all the way through it. I marked it as DNF at 58%.
So, my main issues stem from the characters. Oh man, the characters. Our lead lady, Cam, is absolutely horrible. I'm sorry, but she is. She's was like a cardboard cutout. Pretty on the outside but flat and lacking depth on the outside (despite her "deep thoughts". Seriously, look at this quote: "Instead of sitting around dreaming up new sex positions, as Natalie often does about Damon, I dream about things that really matter. What the air in other countries feels like on my skin, how the ocean smells, why the sound of rain makes me gasp." That's an actual freaking quote. I rolled my eyes so hard when I read that). Besides that, she was also leading the slut shame parade. I can't even count the number of times she called her supposed "best friend" a slut in the first chapter. Literally every other girl in this book was called a slut at one point or another. It's ridiculous.
Oh, and lets not forget the best part about her: the fact that she threw a tantrum and got on a bus without telling anyone and without a destination . . . WTF is this logic. Why would you do that? I get wanting to be spontaneous but even after spending days riding on the bus, she still didn't see how absolutely idiotic she was. Of course, when she meets super hot and dreamy Andrew on this bus, that's when the story really gets rolling.
And Andrew. Sweet little Andrew. I hate this guy, too. He was a walking contradiction, honestly. It was most obvious when he said how non-violent he was when we first read from his point of view but then every single chapter after that he talks about wanting to punch something to deal with his frustrations. Was this supposed to be hot? This wasn't hot, it was scary and creepy. Not a good time. He also says things like this: "if you were to let me fuck you, you would have to let me own you" and like this “I’m so hard right now my dick can cut diamonds.” What is this. This is supposed to be attractive? I honestly can't figure out why so many people like him. I couldn't jump onto the "We Love Andrew" train with everything he did and said throughout the book.
The final nail in the coffin of this book was the trivialization of mental illness. Yep, along with all the violence and slut shaming, this book also had that. Here, let me pull a quote for you: "I always thought depression was so overrated, the way people toss the word around (a lot like the L-word that I will never say to a guy again for as long as I live). I never like to see someone hurting, but I admit whenever I heard someone play the depression card, I'd roll my eyes and go about my business.
Little did I know that depression is a serious disease." Yeah, that was pretty much when I knew I wouldn't be liking this book.
Obviously, there's a lot of other people out there who absolutely adored this book. I'm just not one of them. I couldn't overlook the things that bothered me in this book enough to enjoy the story and the characters got on my nerves like nothing else. I don't think I'll be giving this author another shot but if you end up reading this book, I hope you get more out of it than I did.
The final nail in the coffin of this book was the trivialization of mental illness. Yep, along with all the violence and slut shaming, this book also had that. Here, let me pull a quote for you: "I always thought depression was so overrated, the way people toss the word around (a lot like the L-word that I will never say to a guy again for as long as I live). I never like to see someone hurting, but I admit whenever I heard someone play the depression card, I'd roll my eyes and go about my business.
Little did I know that depression is a serious disease." Yeah, that was pretty much when I knew I wouldn't be liking this book.
Obviously, there's a lot of other people out there who absolutely adored this book. I'm just not one of them. I couldn't overlook the things that bothered me in this book enough to enjoy the story and the characters got on my nerves like nothing else. I don't think I'll be giving this author another shot but if you end up reading this book, I hope you get more out of it than I did.
“Heart always wins out over the mind. The heart, although reckless and suicidal and a masochist all on its own, always gets its way.”
One Teapot
I felt the same way. The only thing is I finished this novel and I regret finishing it so much because it was SO HORRIBLE. I absolutely loathed it. I have the sequel on my Kindle, but I will most likely not be reading it. Great review!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it really surprised me that so many other people really enjoyed it. I feel like it just took all the bad things about NA and rolled it into one package that I didn't really want delivered.
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