Title: MELT
Author: Selene Castrovilla
Release Date: November 6th 2014
Release Date: November 6th 2014
Publisher: Last Syllable Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: eARC for blog tour
Source: eARC for blog tour
MELT is a brutal love story, set against the backdrop of The Wizard of Oz. Sixteen year old “good girl” Dorothy just blew into the small town of Highland Park – where the social headquarters is Munchkinland (Dunkin’ Donuts.) There, she meets Joey – a “bad boy” who tells no one about the catastrophic domestic violence he witnesses at home. Can these two lovers survive peer pressure, Joey’s reputation, and his alcoholism? And then there’s his family's secret – about to be unleashed.
Told in dual first person, Joey's words are scattered on the page - reflecting his broken state. Dorothy is the voice of reason - until something so shattering happens that she, too, may lose her grip. Can their love endure, or will it melt away?
MELT is based on true events. It is both a chilling tale of abuse, and a timeless romance. It will hit you like a punch in the face, and also seep through the cracks in your soul.MELT is not a book for the faint of heart. I went into it on a lazy Sunday morning and having completely forgotten what the blurb said, and instantly it had me in its grip. This is one of those books that is just impossible to put down, and because of its length - three hundred twenty-eight pages, according to Goodreads, but it does feel significantly shorter than that - I don't think anyone would have to.
Dorothy is an all-around good girl: she has good grades, does not smoke, drink, or care for her social status. But when her parents' job bring her to Highland Park, she meets Joey, someone that everyone considers to be a bad boy through and through. He drinks, has a mangled fist from numerous fights, and even a rap sheet, but no one in their small town knows the horrors that he's subjected to daily at home. No one knows, and when they see him, no one cares... except for Dorothy.
They ain't doing nothing new to me.
I already got myself locked up in my head.The moment we enter his head, it is easy to discern that Joey has a twisted life. His story broke my heart because, once we get past the booze and the fighting, he really is a good guy who just wants a normal, loving family to come home to. So the entire time as Dorothy tries her best to unravel him, I kept waving my internal pom poms for her.
There is, undeniably, quite a bit of insta-love in this book, but it was so beautifully done that it didn't bother me one bit. And who was I to question the sparks that flew right off page one, the same sparks that melted my heart right alongside Dorothy's and Joey's? Their relationship goes through its highs and lows, Dorothy desperate to tear down his walls and Joey letting her in while still keeping her at a distance because he's sure that once she learns of his real life, she'd bail.
A gripping tale of love, the lack of it, and just what both can do to a person, MELT is one book I will never forget. The author truly nailed the dual POV and made me not just read the story, but experience it, and I only breathed for real once I got to the end.
MY FAVORITE PART is the ending. Sigh.
RATING:
Selene Castrovilla is an award-winning teen and children’s author who believes that through all trends, humanity remains at the core of literature. She is the author of Saved By the Music and The Girl Next Door, teen novels originally published by WestSide Books and now available digitally through ASD Publishing. Her third children’s book with Calkins Creek Books, Revolutionary Friends, was released in April 2013. She is also a contributing author to UncommonYA. Selene holds an MFA in creative writing from New School University and a BA in English from New York University. She lives on Long Island with her two sons.
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ReplyDeleteThis book sounds very interesting and I love the cover! Thanks for the giveaway!! :)