The Reading Obsession

Reviews of Fiction Books: Everything from Young Adult Romance to Crime Thrillers

Deeper - Blue Ashcroft Find this review and more at http://www.thereadingobsession.blogspot.com.ARC received from Netgalley. This review is not biased in any way. There was no money, gifts, discounts, or favors exchanged for this review.I'm still confused of why I'd read a book called Deeper. I know that the first time I saw it on Netgalley, I began laughing. Curiosity overcoming me, I clicked on it, and it turns out that it's about life guards. I don't know why, but I've always had this interest in them. I mean, you see them near all the pools, lakes, and oceans, but rarely do you ever actually speak with them. I expected this book to give me an inside look into the world of life guards. Ignoring that insanely overused cover type and the completely terrible title, I decided to request it. And I got accepted.On the first page, I realized something was wrong. But I've been wrong about these things before. So I kept reading. And I got progressively annoyed. Around halfway through, reviews popped up from Goodread friends giving it a one star. I should have stopped reading, but I have this annoying OCD thing where, if I'm halfway through with a book, I have to finish it.Yesterday, I talked about how The Sea of Tranquility gave me hope for New Adult. Deeper is the sort of book to rip that hope away.Rain's boyfriend died, and she decides to never love anyone again. This had so much potential of making the story amazing and intriguing, but it somehow makes it worse. And then you find out that he wasn't her boyfriend after all, just a guy who asked her on a date.I don't know what I was expecting; this is New Adult, after all.Anyways, she sees this guy across a bonfire, and she immediately forgets about him and goes on her merry way. This wouldn't be a New Adult if that happened. Instead of not having any feelings about him, she does the completely logical thing of falling in love with him.This guy starts kissing her, and then she leaves.This is the part where she could have continued with her life, and this story would have never been written.But it turns out, that the guy is Knight, her new co-worker. He gets annoyed because she's new, but it actually sounds like he's angry because she's a girl.Oh, and he also has some secret and tragic past, completely unlike the rest of New Adult books.Inexplicably, they start dating, even though they "hate" each other. Knight is still an annoying jerk, and Rain's an idiot.There was one time I admired Rain, because she stopped a rape attempt. Knight immediately becomes furious with her for putting her life at risk, and she basically apologizes. I'd be slightly okay if he was worried about her, but instead, Knight thinks, "How can she do this to me?" At that part, I stopped making fun of the book and began mentally strangling it, instead.This isn't even the worst part. There's a scene where there's a freaking pedophile in the pool with the kids. It's barely written as serious, but just like it's an everyday occurrence. Rain chases after the guy, and Knight thinks, again, "How can she do this to me?"How can she do this to him? What about the girls that are mentally scared? What about the fact that maybe Knight should actually respect someone who tries and help other people? He's a life guard; he should understand that there are more lives important than his.Along with this complete disaster, you also have no plot. Well, there's the "romance", but that literally is it. Maybe, maybe if there was another plot, I might have liked it the tiniest bit more.Character develop isn't even barely there in this story, apart from the fact that Rain and Knight fall in love.The names in this story were just awful. It didn't even have the excuse of being a gothic, like Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, or having a crazy mother, like in Angelfall. This is the least horrid thing in this terrible piece of writing that doesn't even deserve to be called a novel.Will I be reading any more writings by this author? God, no. I read this thing, and I wanted to rip my eyes out. I'm not standing it again.

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