Review: 4.5 - Life isn't always easy. It isn't always fair. But it is an adventure. Stars.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 22, 2014
I recommend that if you can, read Shredded (Book 1 in this series) before you start Shattered. It isn’t imperative, but you will get an insight into Ash, and just how much the devastating loss of his parents changes him from the ultra organised, down-to-earth planner of the group, to the closed in, emotionally locked down man that you see in Shattered.Nothing is okay. Nothing is ever going to be okay. That’s not how my world works.Ash has pretty much lost everything of the life he knew, struggling with the responsibility of being big brother and guardian to his younger brother Logan. Who is himself also trying to come to terms with the massive changes to his life from the injuries he sustained in the car crash that took his parents. Both are very much ‘living one day at a time’, and both are struggling with feelings of guilt for things that have come to pass, but essentially were out of their control.Ash – I feel so guilty, and I love him so much.Ash – “I love you and have never, for one second, wanted you to be anything but what you are.”At the opposite end of the scale, Tansy has spent almost her entire life fighting to live, now in remission from cancer, it’s finally all about living and trying to find out who she is, she’s not ‘cancer girl’ anymore, and she doesn't want to be defined by who she was, she just isn’t 100% sure who she wants to be yet.I never let myself dream about anything. It was too painful to think about a future I’d never get the chance to live.Who is this girl? She’s like a chameleon, changing colour and camouflage every time I see her. From floral sundresses to bitch boots to hipster tees. Which one is the real Tansy?While Tansy sees herself at the beginning of something good, Ash believes he lost what was good in his life with the death of his parents, and his subsequent retirement from Snowboarding. She’s now whole, while he‘s broken, she wears her heart on her sleeve, his is hidden behind a wall of ice, she is light, while all he feels is the dark, yet together they blend and become something else, something that works for all of their facets, and makes them whole.Enter Timmy, a boy on a mission to enjoy his life to the fullest, for however long (or short) that may be. Add in a trip to the Chilean Andes and a whole lot of new beginnings and ‘firsts’, and this may be Tracy’s best book to date.I thought this would be a hard story to read, and don't get me wrong it gets quite heavy and emotional in parts, but at the end I had a smile on my face. This is a book about moving out from under the shadow of death, moving on and learning to live with the life you have afterwards, the people that are left in it and accepting the differences and changes in yourself because of the experiences that you have been through.Tracy Wolff as an author has for me made massive improvements over the past 12 months. Check out my previous reviews for this author, you will see I and her earlier releases have not always gotten on, but I have stuck with her as I believed there was something exceptional in there. I am so glad I did, she is now rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors.ARC generously provided via Netgalley, and it was my absolute pleasure to provide the above honest review.