Lovin' los libros

 

 

This was such a difficult novella to read. Having read Kacey's heartbreaking story in Ten Tiny Breaths, I knew that this wouldn't be an easy, light-hearted book. I fell in love with Trent instantaneously in Ten Tiny Breaths. Some people called him a stalker and it really infuriated me because that's not what it was about. We especially see that in this book. Instead, we have a very broken man who does not feel he can move forward with his life after a tragic accident took the lives of his best friends as well as a car full of innocent lives just going to get pizza. He feels survivors guilt and is constantly wondering about the young girl who lay battered and broken in a hospital bed. He feels the enormous weight of responsibility, as he was the one who was supposed to be the DD for the night. It is his father's car that does the damage and he has to live with that for every day of the rest of his life.

 

My heart ached for him. He doesn't know how to cope and ends up withdrawing from the world and the people he loves most in it. He sees his parent's marriage falling apart in front of him as the weight of grief for their son, as well as their financial stability get to be too much to handle.

 

Watching him spiral into darkness was incredibly difficult to read and while people think his obsessive behavior towards making sure Kacey is okay is stalkerish, it's not meant to be. He doesn't know how to deal. He can't leave this girl alone. He is desperate to make amends. He doesn't want her to spiral into her own darkness that she can't crawl up from. Sure, he doesn't necessarily go about all of this in the sanest of ways, but he is driven. He literally feels like he has nothing left and he wants nothing more than to earn forgiveness, as well as see this beautiful girl smile like she used to in old Facebook pictures.

 

He wants to protect her from the darkness and from herself. If appointing himself as her own personal guardian is what he needs to do in order to make sure she doesn't do something that she will regret for eternity, then I say more power to him. Upon her release from the hospital, Kacey is a mess. She drinks, does drugs, and drowns herself in a world where she no longer has to feel. Her younger sister is depending on her and needs her older sister to be there for her.

 

I loved getting Trent's story, as heartbreaking and difficult as it was to read. However, I just love him even more after reading it and I'm so glad K.A. felt strongly enough for him to write his novella.