Review: Honest review given
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 18, 2014
Well....that wasn't an ending I thought could happen after all the goings on in this book! I have never, EVER, despised a lead character as much as I despised Kendall, obviously that excludes villains, as Kendall is not the villain in this book, she is the female lead. I just hated her and getting to read her internal monologue during the chapters written in her point of view did nothing to endear her to me or redeem her actions. I get she has issues, but so does everyone else to some extent, but she was so mired in her own self-pity and blinded by her jealousy of others that she could not see a situation from anyone else's perspective other than her own. Maybe I'm a harsh, unforgiving b**** but I could not excuse her behaviour. So she was bullied at school, she's now a 30 year old woman doing exactly that to 19 year old Megan, a girl who Kendall deems as a rival of Johnnie's attention despite the fact Megan is deliriously happily married to Johnnie's brother Christopher. Kendall judged Megan on her looks, being petite, blonde haired and blue eyed, Kendall decided that Megan was the same as those girls who bullied her in high school, despite Megan not having acted in any way to deserve such judgement. So Kendall did exactly what had been done to her, she judged another woman based on her looks.It wasn't just the way she was with Megan that gained her the top spot of my most hated Leading Lady list, it was how she treated Johnnie, she was so manipulative! She demanded to be the centre of his attention and resented anything and anyone that drew his attention elsewhere. She was blinded by her own self-pity, could not seem to see the faults in her own actions, it was all about how things affected her and she didn't seem able to see how others were affected. She was her own worse enemy, seemed happy to remain wallowing in her self-pity despite attempts by Johnnie and others to pull her out of it. Christopher hit the nail on the head when he said, referring to Kendall, "She a sulkin', miserable c*** that f*****' manipulate situations to keep herself a sulkin' miserable c***". As eloquent and charismatic as ever Christopher haha, nevertheless he was dead on the mark.I loved the scenes that Kendall wasn't in, written in the other characters POV's, I found myself really looking forward to those parts. I'm excited to see what becomes of Val and Zoann, Mortician and Bailey, Digger and Stretch, and I really want to read more of Christopher and Megan's story.This book only didn't achieve a five star rating from me because I was not happy with the ending. I understand that we the readers should accept the ending the author wrote and appreciate the journey of the story, and I did! Kathryn Kelly's writing is amazing, I would not be this incensed about a character had her superb story-telling not drew me in.BUT, I would have been more accepting of Johnnie's "happily ever after" if we had seen a bit more of Kendall's more reasonable side. I just don't think I had long enough to come around to her from the time she stopped being such an epic b**** to the end of the book.