on February 9, 2016
Pages: 236
Genres: PNR, Romance
Goodreads
Reading Challenges: Conquer My TBR
Josephine Clark is trapped. A harrowing past haunts her every time she looks in the mirror, and she can’t escape the violence of her everyday life. More and more, her thoughts turn to Evan Salinger, the boy she knew in high school. The boy they called a mental case. A loner. A freak. The boy who seemed to know things no one could know. For a few short weeks, Jo had found perfect solace in Evan’s company, sneaking every night to meet him at the local pool. In the cool of the water and the warmth of Evan’s arms around her, Jo had tasted something close to happiness.
Cruel circumstances tore them apart, and four years later, the sweet memory of their time together is dissolving under the punishing reality of Jo’s life now. Evan seems like a fading dream…until he reappears at the moment she needs him most. Guided by Evan’s strange intuition, they flee her small Louisiana town, and Jo begins to suspect there is something more to his sudden return than he admits.
Over twelve days across America’s heartland, deep secrets come to light, buried pasts are unearthed, and the line between dreams and reality is blurred as Evan and Jo fight to hold on to their soul-deep love, and discover that there is more than one way to save a life.
***
How to Save a Life is a complete second-chance STANDALONE novel with shades of the paranormal. It carries the characters from high school through to their early twenties. It is not YA; mature subject matter, and sexual situations. TRIGGER WARNING: domestic violence (on the page) and mention of sexual abuse (off the page) For readers 18 years and up.
The Dreamcatcher novels are a series of interconnected STANDALONES, each with shades of the paranormal. It is NOT necessary to read them in order, though some characters appear in other novels.
❝Evan kissed me like I was the air he needed to breathe. I clutched him like I was the gravity keeping him close.❞
OMG, why did my friends not DEMAND I read this? I absolutely, positively loved it!
How to Save a Life was everything I want in a book. It kept me engaged, kept me yearning for more and omg, the feels! It had all of them. I cried, I laughed, I cried some more … my only criticism is it ENDED!
This story and these characters will be with me forever. I am in love with them. I did not want this story to end. And, as I write this review, I am listening to the audio version!
Admittedly, I read this series out of order, not that it mattered, but I think it gave me a greater appreciation for this story. If you have not yet started this series, the second book begins with a little bit of Evan and Jo. I could not wait to read this book after having read Sugar and Gold.
❝His kiss gave me those impossible things I’d desperately wanted all my life; consideration, reverence.❞
These two abused and broken, yet unbelievably strong characters taught us that your circumstances do not define you. YOU write your story. Take a deep breath and plunge.
Jo was abused and abused again. She fought to survive. Her only light in the darkness came from Evan Salinger. The freak. The mental case. The boy who intrigued her by his solitude and good looks. He saw her for who she was, she saw a lost soul who needed a home. Together they were love personified.
If you have not already, I encourage you to read this book. Emma Scott gives us a story about love so strong that no matter what happens, no matter the circumstances, love wins Every. Single. Time. How to Save a Life, was poetic, it was beautiful and it was stunning.
❝I love you more than anything. More than my own life. No, that’s not true. You are my life. You’re in the marrow of my bones, Jo. In my dreams, my future, every particle of me.❞
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