2 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
As far as the Heartaches: bad boy vibes series goes, I'm afraid I came a tad late to the party, I started in the second book of the series and I feel like I should have started from the first because this book is really something!
Heartaches 2 by H.M.Irwing is described as a romance but in my a opinion it is a relationship ( both friendly and romantic relationships) based book set in Melbourne, Australia. It follows the lives of three people, in an army training barrack, all of whom are tied together by one form of relationship or the other, each of them is fighting their own personal battle and somehow they only pull through because of each other. Anna, Rafe and Pat battle everything from sexual abuse, to trauma, to family secrets that could cause natural disasters, all to fall back to their relationships with each other for support and guidance to pull through it. It started with a nightmare and ended with a plan, which in my opinion is how this book thing should be done.
The most endearing thing about this book to me, is its premise, it was well thought out, its the kind of story that if properly executed could send shock waves to the moon and back. I also loved that the book was action packed; It had twists for its twists and turns where you least expect them, it was so thrilling that it had me reading through the night sleep be damned!, truly H.M.Irwing has a gift for storylines.
The most frustrating thing for me about this book has to be the idea that victims and survivors of sexual abuse are in some way weak, or that they view themselves as weak, and this kept coming up whenever the main characters happened to talk about their past experiences of abuse, it somehow came close to sounding like victim blaming. Another thing I didn't like was that the writing was inconsistent, sometimes it was vivid and clear, explaining everything from scenery to how the air felt, and other times, it was barely understandable, it was very frustrating. I would also have liked better character development for some of the background characters.
I wouldn't recommend this book for anybody below the age of eighteen, or anybody who is very sensitive towards narratives of sexual abuse, and just to be safe, survivors of sexual abuse because this book dealt with certain societal norms and interpretations given to sexual abuse and it wasn't very delicate about some of it.
This book seems to be professionally edited with almost no grammatical errors, so I give this book a rating of 2 out of 4, because although it had one hell of a story it wasn't very well told, and it lacked proper character development for some of the characters, I felt like these characters weren't eased into the book, they were just thrown in! which of course is sad because it took a certain charm off the story, all in all it is a good read.
******
Heartaches 2
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like hadizasalisu's review? Post a comment saying so!
