Review: Live Through This by Mindi Scott

Title: Live Through This

Author: Mindi Scott

Publisher:  Simon Pulse

Publication Date: 10.2.2012

Pages: 304

Genre: Contemporary

Series: No

Source: eBook

Rating: B-

Summary (from Goodreads):

From the outside, Coley Sterling’s life seems pretty normal . . . whatever that means. It’s not perfect—her best friend is seriously mad at her and her dance team captains keep giving her a hard time—but Coley’s adorable, sweet crush Reece helps distract her. Plus, she has a great family to fall back on—with a mom and stepdad who would stop at nothing to keep her siblings and her happy.

But Coley has a lot of secrets. She won’t admit—not even to herself—that her almost-perfect life is her own carefully-crafted façade. That for years she’s been burying the shame and guilt over a relationship that crossed the line. Now that Coley has the chance at her first real boyfriend, a decade’s worth of lies are on the verge of unraveling.

Review:

Can I first offer a huge standing ovation to Mindi Scott for tackling such a sensitive issue? A lot of authors would avoid subjects like incest, domestic abuse and domestic rape, but Scott took a huge risk here and wrote about it in Live Through This.

That being said, I felt this book simply wasn’t long enough for everything going on inside. There was the sexual abuse, a burgeoning love story, a feud with a former-best friend, and a whole mess of family dynamics. There were a lot of sub-plots and characters packed into this novel and I felt it watered down the plot significantly, to the point where I just never got a feel of who Coley was.

Coley is a girl going through a horrific ordeal. She’s surviving the best way she can—by pushing the issue away and orchestrating this perfect façade. There were some chapters she even convinced me she was OK because of how well she was doing with things and how little the abuse was mentioned.

This book is a quick read—I finished it in a day. I just felt like it was lacking something because so much of it felt scattered. And the ending really bothered me. I didn’t feel like there was any closure for me as the reader, but I also realize that in order for me to get that closure there would probably need to be a second book, or at least another 200 pages.

I would recommend you check this out because 1) the subject matter is so crucial to bring into the light and 2) despite my lackluster review, this is getting crazy great reviews around the blogs. Maybe I would caution you to check it out of the library before buying.

Buy: Amazon | The Book Depository