Review: For lovers of Mystery, Turmoil, & New Adult Romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 22, 2014
3.5 Broken, Skittish StarsAsh is Katie’s first memory and her best friend.  She vowed to protect him since the first time he crawled through her window bloodied and bruised.  But what happens when the best way to protect someone is to let them go?  Ten months ago, Katie ran from Ash; breaking his heart to ensure he’d walk away and move on.  She returns to her hometown to help out her dad, never expecting Ash to return to a town that brought him so much misery.  But Ash never let Katie go and he couldn’t stay away from the only place he might find her again.Reading SEE THROUGH ME is a bit like trying to read through smoke.  Katie doesn’t say what made her leave Ash or what happened that left her with scars.  Chapters alternate between present time and the past, with the past highlighting some of the most meaningful moments of Ash and Katie’s relationship.  Through the flashbacks, the reader finds out about the abuse Ash suffered and the neglect Katie endured.  Neither had a happy childhood, but they are each other’s best hope for a promising future.  If only Katie can stop the lies and the running.  But the same forces that separated Katie and Ash before seem to be at work again, only this time even Katie can’t be sure of who is to blame.  The story is left on a cliffhanger and I believe the sequel will be told from Ash’s perspective.I flew through SEE THROUGH ME and enjoyed it despite its dark undertone.  Katie is very broken and scared and you can feel her turmoil throughout the book.  I loved getting to know Katie and Ash through the flashbacks; it allowed me to see just how much love they had invested in each other.  It was especially helpful since Katie has a habit of lying or cracking jokes to diffuse situations so it’s hard to really get to know the real her in present time.  I think without the flashbacks I would have thought their relationship was all sex, no communication, but the flashbacks show that Ash sees right through Katie’s defense mechanisms.  I myself couldn’t quite get a read on her since she was constantly hot and cold so it was good to know Ash got it.  In some ways the entire book is like that, Katie isn’t very forthcoming and so the reader is left in the dark until almost the end as to why Katie really left.  I do think if Katie had spent a little more time being honest with Ash in present time it would make it more compelling to the reader to read the sequel; it was almost too long to be left wondering. I also found some of the suspense aspects of the story a bit unbelievable and farfetched at times and in particular at the end, but that could also be because it hasn’t been fully explained and we should find out a lot more in the sequel.I would recommend SEE THROUGH ME to anyone who likes a little mystery and sadness mixed in with their new adult romance.**Complimentary copy provided by the author/publisher for an honest review.