Review: Beautiful, intense and haunting....
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 29, 2013
Five stars are definitely not enough for this book. It has left me a complete emotional mess. For the last 30% of the book I had tears running down my face, sobbing away. I feel like I've been an emotional punching bag throughout the book. But every punch was worth it.This book is a real gem. And Marie Hall has accomplished to take a very dark topic and turning it into an emotionally raw, painful read that still ends up giving you hope. And she has done it all without trivializing the horrors of sexual abuse. A Moment just grabs your heart and squeezes the life out of it, just to put it back in your chest with a ribbon around it.Liliana, the main female character in this book, is a 21 year old woman that has a lot of responsibilities which do not allow her to be the usual party-loving college student. She has a 7 year old autistic son to take care of. And since her father walked out on her family, she takes care of her mother who suffers from MS. She works and goes to college to become a nurse. Despite the challenges and burdens that life puts on her, she is a loving, caring and unselfish person. She is loyal and gives everything for the people she loves. Rarely do I find a female character in a book that doesn't annoy me at one point or another. That doesn't do something that makes me want to slap her. Liliana is one of those characters. Everything she does makes me like her even more, makes me feel her pain even stronger. The way she takes care of her son, of her mother. The way she loves Ryan unconditionally and doesn't judge him. She is such a beautiful person.When she decides to hang out with her friend Alex on Valentine's Day she meets Ryan. A introverted, one-word man that fascinates her non-the-less. Later that night she ends up saving his life after he tried to kill himself. Despite her reservations she starts spending time with him afterwords and they grow closer until a very loving, caring and sweet relationship develops. But Ryan's demons always stand between them, making it hard for him to open up and for Lili to be there for him. His interactions with Liliana are so sweet and gentle, that he will make your heart melt. The way he accepts her son and loves him and cares for him, accepting him the way he is, is absolutely beautiful. I couldn't help but fall in love with Ryan myself. The way his character is written, you want to do anything to take away his pain. You want to make him see how wonderful he is. And when his demons come back to haunt him, it is heart-wrenching. I felt like my heart shattered in a million pieces.I can't praise Marie Hall enough for this book. Often you'll find books tackling a topic like sexual abuse or suicide very superficially, using it to move the romance forward showing how the love of one person saves another. This book goes deeper. It is ugly at times. It is painful and raw and it shows that love can help heal but that only the victim her/himself can do the saving. I liked about this book that it just didn't go: Oh, you've been raped but now you found love and all is well. Lalala...". It tells about the struggles of not only the victims, but also of the family members that were indirectly affected. It tells about the pain the victim goes through. The self-blame, the hate, the pain and anguish. Reading this book it made me want to go out and hug every single person that suffered through such horrors and tell them how beautiful and wonderful they are and that they deserve to be loved.Despite the dark topics, the book still manages to warm the heart. With the love between the main protagonists, but also the love and joy Lili's family, Ryan and Alex have for each other. And the ending is absolutely perfect.I can't recommend this book highly enough. I know it will stay with me for a while and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series.