Thursday, January 9, 2014

4 stars for The Destiny of Violet and Luke by Jessica Sorensen


Luke Price's life has always been about order, control, and acting tough on the outside. For Luke, meaningless relationships are a distraction-a way to tune out the twisted memories of his childhood. He desperately wishes he could forget his past, but it haunts him no matter what he does.

Violet Hayes has had a rough life. When she was young, she was left with no family and the memory of her parents' unsolved murders. She grew up in foster homes, living with irresponsible parents, drugs, and neglect, and trying to fight the painful memories of the night her parents were taken from her. But it's hard to forget when she never got closure-and she can't stop dreaming about what happened that tragic night. To make it through life, she keeps her distance from everyone and never allows herself to feel anything.

Then Violet meets Luke. The two clash instantly, yet they can't seem to stay away from each other. Although they fight it, they both start to open up and feel things they've never felt before. They discover just how similar they are. But they also discover something else: The past always catches up with you . . .


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4 out of 5 stars

It’s really tough to talk about this book without spoiling, but I’m going to try to do just that. If this review seem cryptic, that’s why.

Yet another story about surviving with Callie and Kayden’s college roommates as the main characters. Violet’s family was murdered when she was six, and she’s been bounced from foster home to foster home. She’s learned to deal, and she carries her pain silently. She’s build a protective wall around herself so she doesn’t feel it. She doesn’t really have any friends, besides a creepy foster parent

Luke had a cruddy childhood too. His parents are divorced, his mom a drug addict. She asks him do things that no parent should ask their child. He deals with his emotional pain with alcohol and promiscuous sex. He's got a big wall around him too.

Both Luke and Violet have found their own safety zone until one night when they meet. Everything changes for both of them and over the course of many chapters they begin a to gradually open up to each other. It isn’t an easy path. Their blossoming relationship is marred by a terrible secret, which is divulged to the reader early on in the book. It’s like watching a car wreck in slow motion as they grow closer to each other and choose to make changes for the better in their lives. You just know it’s gonna be bad when that secret gets revealed, and Jessica Sorensen does a good job of lifting these two up, only for them to be dashed to the rocks again.

The ending left me with so many questions and heartache. What will Luke do with the information he now has? What will Violet do about it? And can they recover from these revelations before their lives go completely down the tubes?

I like the gritty and extremely emotional stories in this series. Violet and Luke kept me turning the page to the end. If you like a dark and emotional read, this may be for you.

Unfortunately, there is no release date for a follow-up to this, and the author has not mentioned any release for the next book in 2014.  (Correction: Jessica Sorensen just posted today 1/9/2014 a release date of May 2014 for the next book in this series.)  


Thanks to Forever (Grand Central Publishing) and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review.

Buy Links:
   Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's hard to talk about any of her books without spoiling. Lol
If I read this one it'll be only when the whole "series" is complete. I'm done with her cliffies and my heart suffering because of them. Ha!

Trader Mare said...

Heart suffering for sure! You get a big dose of it in this one. My mouth may have actually hung open for a few minutes when I got to the end. It's a great relationship ride though and I hope there will be some way for them to salvage what they worked so hard to build. I was very happy to see the May 2014 date this morning ... I think I can do that!

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