Toxic (Ruin #2)

Toxic (Ruin #2) - Rachel Van Dyken

DESCRIPTION

Everyone has a secret...

Gabe Hyde is on borrowed time. He's been hiding his identity for over four years-hidden from the world that used to adore him--obsess over him--driven to the edge of insanity by one poor choice. 

But that one choice, altered the course of his life forever. 

Pretending isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when pretending means hiding your real self from the people that care about you the most. But if anyone ever discovered the truth it wouldn't just be his life at risk--but hers. 

Saylor doesn't hate men. 

Just Gabe. 

Only Gabe. 

He's a reckless, happy-go-lucky, silver spoon fed pain in her ass. Everything about him makes her more and more confused. Unfortunately they both donate time at the same Group Home. If she wasn't afraid of flunking, she'd be long gone. She hates that she's attracted to him almost as much as he hates that he's attracted to her--and she can tell, especially since their first encounter ended up making her knees so weak she couldn't form coherent sentences for weeks afterwards. But the closer she gets to him, the more confused she becomes. He isn't who he says he is, and he's hiding something big. 

What happen when two worlds collide? Two worlds that never should have met in the first place? Some secrets are too big to be hidden forever--the only question? Will his destroy everyone he loves? Or finally bring about the redemption he's been craving for the past four years?

REVIEW

Ruin series’ book two by Rachel Van Dyken, where we can find Gabe as main character of this new plot.

I must say that I was anxious to read this book because after reading Ruin I fell in love badly with the characters and their history. I expected to find the same empathy and the same emotion here.

Instead, unfortunately, did not happen, or at least, not so totally.

Gabe is a guy living a farce: his life is a farce, plays a role and it also reads badly. Beautiful, damn, dark and lonely soul, which uses the girls, he use to have alcohol and sex to forgive and rejects any human involvement, except for Wes and Kirsten, his only friends and Lisa, his cousin.

And you, little girl, better be careful. You’re dangerously close to getting me to fall for you, and I don’t do relationships, I do girls.

Saylor is a freshman, sweet, sensitive, a musician, like Gabe. A boring life as her character that is unfortunately very little interesting.

Their opposite worlds met. He tries right now an attraction for her, but wants to stay away because he is not for relations, of course. She hates him, hates the guy who puts her uncomfortable, and that destroys all her certainties. Saylor wants to focus only on her studies and her music, to ensure a solid future for herself and her family that counts on her.

Gabe's character is strong and centralized and sucks the reader's attention that in some chapters almost does not notice the presence of Saylor.

Honestly, I did not understand how their relationship was born and evolved: I did not understand how Gabe felt in love with Saylor, really. Only music plays a main role in their feelings but after that, nothing else.

Gabe has a secret, consuming him day after day. Is in charge of something too large for four years and groping in the dark, waiting for the pain finally wrap. He does not believe in hope, does not believe in love. Then comes Saylor and the rest, well... I couldn't spoiler.

I’m falling for you too. I haven’t fallen. Falling. As in still falling, still in the air, still trying to get used to the idea that I’ve just nose dived off a cliff with every intention of making sure the landing doesn’t break my fall.

The characters in this second book are not as I expected them. Their feelings are strong, their actions sometimes incomprehensible, and I could not get into the story to the end, perhaps because in me it still was Wes and he's powerfully present in this second book.

The story is poignant but can not until the end, despite the life of Gabe both painful and a total disaster. Too many things, too many events and too many dramas: too many for a single book.

I appreciated direct and rude writing style and the fact that the relationship between the two has not expired in the usual scenes of overwhelming passion and sex. I felt sorry for Gabe and for his choices, dictated by grief and denial to believe deserve love and a better life, but I have absolutely not enjoyed the ending, a bit too fast and decisive after all that has happened.

But I love the characters of the entire series, so I enjoyed reading them again, but in this book, as I said, Wes is always present and his actions are the best part, so the reader remains anchored to him inevitably.

Just because we aren't crying on the outside doesn't mean we aren't completely wrecked on the inside.

A good read but not exciting, Gabe did not make me paddling legs and made me fall in love with him, but overall he still caught my attention.

Three stars, maybe three and a half for my loyalty to story.