Review : Stolen : A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher

Tittle : Stolen : A Letter to My Captor

Author : Lucy Christopher

Publisher : Scholastic, Inc

ISBN : 9780545361118

Date Published : February 1st 2011

Gemma, 16, is on layover at Bangkok Airport, en route with her parents to a vacation in Vietnam. She steps away for just a second, to get a cup of coffee. Ty - rugged, tan, too old, oddly familiar - pays for Gemma's drink. And drugs it. They talk. Their hands touch. And before Gemma knows what's happening, Ty takes her. Steals her away. The unknowing object of a long obsession, Gemma has been kidnapped by her stalker and brought to the desolate Australian Outback.

Stolen is her gripping story of survival, of how she has to come to terms with her living nightmare - or die trying to fight it. 

My thought :

 

God, my heart...

Stolen is the most unique book I’ve ever read so far. It really is written as a letter, and it breaks my heart.

When Ty stole Gemma and brought her to that desert, I actually hate him. He forced Gemma against her will, drugged her, and brought her to nowhere with nothing except him and his makeshift property. He did sounds crazy back then, and he looked emotionally unstabble too. But soon I discover that he was just lonely, he needed escape and company, someone who’d understand him and his love to his land, but he did it all wrong He had loved Gemma for years before he stole her, and he had prepared all of their live before he stole her too. I wonder If only he loved her the right way, the story might be not too hurt to read *bawls again*.

The story itself is unique too, during the days Gemma lived in desert with Ty, the author successfully makes our opinion of Ty shift, he wasn’t the crazy kidnapper anymore. I can’t really describe it all because it’s too much, the emotions are too much, and right when I write this, my emotion itself hasn’t come back straight again either, it’s still flying to every kind of sadness and heartbreak, because Ty’s story was nothing like you expected. That guy had been through a lot.

I still can’t accept that ending entirely though, but I think that’s the right ending, because otherwise it’d be fake. This book is so perfect in every way. It doesn’t contain poetic or beautiful words, just innocence that will rip your soul more.

It has been so long since I cried like a baby after I finished a book, It actually feels good, and I’m really glad I read this book because it gives me glimpse to some dark parts of people’s heart and mind.

I recommend this book to people that want to learn to value and to be grateful with their life.

Love, Rose

My rating : 5 stolen stars

Review : The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles #2) by Mary E. Pearson

Title : The Heart of Betrayal

Author : Mary E. Pearson

ISBN13 : 9780805099249

Publisher : Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Date Published : July 7th 2015

Held captive in the barbarian kingdom of Venda, Lia and Rafe have little chance of escape. Desperate to save her life, Lia's erstwhile assassin, Kaden, has told the Vendan Komizar that she has the gift, and the Komizar's interest in Lia is greater than anyone could have foreseen.

Meanwhile, nothing is straightforward: there's Rafe, who lied to Lia, but has sacrificed his freedom to protect her; Kaden, who meant to assassinate her but has now saved her life; and the Vendans, whom Lia always believed to be barbarians. Now that she lives amongst them, however, she realizes that may be far from the truth. Wrestling with her upbringing, her gift, and her sense of self, Lia must make powerful choices that will affect her country... and her own destiny.

My thought :

Before you read this review, you may as well know that this may contain some spoilers from book one. So if you haven’t read The Kiss of Deception, it’ll be better if you read it first.

Mary E. Pearson undoubtly blows my mind again. She’s so well skilled in twisting stories and make this book unputdownable.

The story begins with the exact same time where it left hanging in the end of the first book. Kaden and Vendan soldiers agreed to take Lia and Rafe as prisoner when Venda was well known to never take prisoner. The enemies always dead. Beside it, they also believe that Rafe was an emissary of the Crown Prince of Dalbreck, where you all know better who he really was. They all walked in through the border, and Lia really felt that she was in the middle of barbarian land since the first thing she saw were people with black teeth and belt with bones dangling alongside it.

The Komizar finally made an appearence here. He was a cold and calm man on the outside, but Lia knew that beneath his calm gaze, he was calculating her every movements to see what had made Kaden spare her from his task to slit her throath. I’m instantly afraid of this brat, even through words I can easily picture his greediness of power that he refused to share even a bit. We also get to know his relationship and history with Kaden, why Kaden was so loyal to a monster like him.

For you who have read book one, you must be aware of some triangle love that happen here. But I assure you, there’s no more triangle love than political problems in this book. We all know that Kaden had quite a feeling for Lia, but it doesn’t make this book full of love stories and constant battle between Kaden and Rafe, though you still can feel the tension between them.

As for Lia, she had a really great character development here. She was stubborn and fierce in the first book, and here we also see that she was smart, bold, and really really unafaraid. She began to unravel secrets beneath The Sanctum where she’s kept as prisoner, and her gift also developed to a whole new step. She began to understand the history of Venda that actually doesn’t really far from the history of Morrighan itself, yet so full of lies.

In this book Mary presents us with truths after truths that you really don’t expect. The Komizar held a significant rule in this book since Lia and Rafe were in his ‘mercy’. Lia also discovered that Venda was not what she really imagine at all. There were so much more that the outside world didn’t understand about it. We also have Pauline’s point of view here so we still have an eye of what happened in Morrighan  while Lia was in Venda.

I enjoy this book as much as I enjoy the frst one, if not more. Deception and betrayal aren’t really different, so you should really prepare to be hooked, so much betrayals that would be revealed, and the ending, ah yes you’d want to tear your hair because Mary leaves us hanging again. This ending makes me expect a whole new stories in book three that I’m sure will not be less intriguing. You should pick this up as soon as possible.

Love, Rose.

My rating : 5 stars