My edition: Kindle Unlimited
Pages: 337
Standalone
Genre: YA, Fairy tale retelling
Published: May 14, 2019
Rating: 2 stars
Synopsis:
I gave him three rules. Three impossible rules.
1) I don’t want you to know my real name.
2) We’re never going to meet in person.
3) You don’t get to be my Prince Charming.
When I woke up in the hospital, fatherless and blind, falling in love was my last priority. No, I had to figure out how to live again. And deal with my heinous aunt. Plus her two daughters, aka the Terrible Two.
But then I got my first letter from Jett.
He shouldn’t want anything to do with me – a relationship would cost him too much. But he keeps trying to tell me that some rules are meant to be broken.
The only problem with our rules?
They exist for a reason.
Review:
Spoilers ahead. Not a full rant but kind of ranty review!
My two biggest issues would have to be 1. Taking the Lord’s name in vain and 2. the depiction of Christians. Maybe I read it wrong but it seemed that most of the people who were judgmental were Christian or had Christian ties. An example of this is her former best friend who was traumatized when Cindy showed her face to Bella (former friend) and Ryan (ex-boyfriend). Bella seeks help and it turns out she ends up with a Christian counselor. The counselor suggests Bella do something helpful for Cindy. Well, Bella does something horrible thinking she’s helping but is so not helpful. Also, what does it matter what kind of counselor she had?
I guess she’s going to a Christian counselor, and he said she should do something to help you. She wants to raise money for a plastic surgeon to take care of your scar.”
pg 135
Basically. Apparently, things got way out of hand, a drawing of my face got plastered all over my old school, and now Bella’s Christian counselor told her that ‘helping’ me would speed up her recovery process.”
189
Shay (Cindy’s cousin) tells Cindy about Bella. Bella thinks that helping Cindy would be fixing something superficial. More than likely whether it’s a Christan counselor or a Secular counselor they probably would suggest helping with adjusting to life as a blind person and not the idea Bella came up with. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but it seems Cindy is blaming the counselor for what Bella thought would be “helpful”.
While I don’t like what Bella did, I do believe she did get traumatized. Cindy’s injuries are suggested as her no longer having eyeballs. So imagine seeing someone you used to be close to and he or she ripped off their sunglasses showing they no longer have eyes without any warning… that seems pretty traumatizing. I understand Cindy is going through some issues as you read she is in a bitter place and wants to hurt those who hurt her, even though that does absolutely nothing to make her feel any better.
Cindy is kind of a horrible character that is written like she’s a victim. Cindy tells a sixteen-year-old Addie to confess her feelings to a twenty-year-old man who is also their teacher. The drama that goes down between Addie and Cindy is also stupid. When Addie finds out that JJ is Jett (Cindy’s secret pen pal) she flips out. This doesn’t make sense because Addie knew Cindy had never “met” her pen pal. They both found out almost at the same time that JJ is Jett.
Now I like the idea of the word from a blind person’s point of view. Though at times, I think the author forgot her MCs were blind because at times the wording was that of what a sighted person would do not a blind person. If that makes sense. Also, I wish the descriptions were a little more detailed. More details on touch feeling and more details on smells and more details on the sounds around them. If there was more than that I would have fully bought the POV.
It was a fast read. Faster than I thought originally. So I guess that’s a good thing. But there are just too many issues that I had with Cindy and the plot. Though again I will say I love the aspect behind what the author tried to do.
The Kansan Reader 