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A review by pikasqueaks
Bleed Like Me by Christa Desir
3.0
BLEED LIKE ME is the story of two people who shouldn't be together but find themselves there anyway. Amelia is a hard to like protagonist who is sad because her parents adopted a trio of unruly kids, and she has fallen to the wayside in their wake. It's hard to stomach seeing a kid get ignored for a bunch of other, awful kids. I wanted to see some kind of redeeming situation for the kids, but there isn't. They're just vile little shits. In order to deal with the pain of her life, Amelia cuts herself.
Brooks is also a little shit, but in a different way. He's stalkery and he doesn't take no for an answer. Soon after their relationship begins, the reality of his character is unveiled. He's an abusive jerk who starts to cut her off from everyone and everything, and she goes along with it, because, well, someone is paying attention to her, and that is everything when you're a teenager who doesn't see the rest of the world around her.
I take issue with some of the summary of this story, because this is not an intimate portrayal of love. It is a portrayal of obsession, self-harm, and infatuation, but these characters don't love each other. They don't know how to love themselves first and foremost, and while I'm not really the biggest fan of that cliche, I think it's important here. BLEED LIKE ME is not a love story at all.
The story attempts to make us understand why Brooks is the way he is, but honestly, it doesn't succeed. In the end, I didn't care about Brooks, I only worried for Amelia.
In today's world, who ISN'T familiar with cutting as self harm? But this book takes it a step further, and there's a particularly interesting scene that's unlike anything I've read in YA before -- something I was excited to find in this book. In it, Brooks cuts Amelia, and it turns kinda sexual. That'smykink aside, it's a kind of scene that doesn't get explored in YA enough, for obvious reasons. I appreciated how honest this was. Very much so. Like with the author's debut, FAUL LINE, she is frank and honest, albeit tactful, with how she depicts some of the darker parts of the characters and their stories.
Unfortunately, the story began to fall apart for me the moment we had the benevolent adult introduced. She comes in after Amelia has moves away from home (run away, really) and in with Brooks in a shitty environment. She's introduced in an all-to-obvious, saccharine sort of way. I didn't want Amelia to get out of her situation because of a third party. I wanted to see her grow up and bloom.
This is a problem with the author's style of writing, I think. She aims for the frank and the short, she aims to make the story as hard-hitting with the subject matter as possible, but what we lose in this style are strong, well-developed characters. This was a problem in FAULT LINE, but it was more apparent here, because Amelia is a character who needs to be understood. But unfortunately, the character development for Amelia was severely lacking.
I wanted more for Amelia. I wanted more for an ending, too. After they relocate, the reader can determine where the story is going and it gets kind of pointless to read it. We know what's going to happen, but unfortunately, we don't get a strong enough resolution.
What's unique about this story is unfortunately just the adopted brothers. Everything else, I have read in other, stronger books. Amelia and Brooks are just not strongly written enough for me to be satisfied with this book.
However, I still look forward to what else Christ Desire writes. I think she has a lot of great stories to tell. I just hope that in the future, we will get more fleshed-out characters instead of super edgy plot points.
Brooks is also a little shit, but in a different way. He's stalkery and he doesn't take no for an answer. Soon after their relationship begins, the reality of his character is unveiled. He's an abusive jerk who starts to cut her off from everyone and everything, and she goes along with it, because, well, someone is paying attention to her, and that is everything when you're a teenager who doesn't see the rest of the world around her.
I take issue with some of the summary of this story, because this is not an intimate portrayal of love. It is a portrayal of obsession, self-harm, and infatuation, but these characters don't love each other. They don't know how to love themselves first and foremost, and while I'm not really the biggest fan of that cliche, I think it's important here. BLEED LIKE ME is not a love story at all.
The story attempts to make us understand why Brooks is the way he is, but honestly, it doesn't succeed. In the end, I didn't care about Brooks, I only worried for Amelia.
In today's world, who ISN'T familiar with cutting as self harm? But this book takes it a step further, and there's a particularly interesting scene that's unlike anything I've read in YA before -- something I was excited to find in this book. In it, Brooks cuts Amelia, and it turns kinda sexual. That'smykink aside, it's a kind of scene that doesn't get explored in YA enough, for obvious reasons. I appreciated how honest this was. Very much so. Like with the author's debut, FAUL LINE, she is frank and honest, albeit tactful, with how she depicts some of the darker parts of the characters and their stories.
Unfortunately, the story began to fall apart for me the moment we had the benevolent adult introduced. She comes in after Amelia has moves away from home (run away, really) and in with Brooks in a shitty environment. She's introduced in an all-to-obvious, saccharine sort of way. I didn't want Amelia to get out of her situation because of a third party. I wanted to see her grow up and bloom.
This is a problem with the author's style of writing, I think. She aims for the frank and the short, she aims to make the story as hard-hitting with the subject matter as possible, but what we lose in this style are strong, well-developed characters. This was a problem in FAULT LINE, but it was more apparent here, because Amelia is a character who needs to be understood. But unfortunately, the character development for Amelia was severely lacking.
I wanted more for Amelia. I wanted more for an ending, too. After they relocate, the reader can determine where the story is going and it gets kind of pointless to read it. We know what's going to happen, but unfortunately, we don't get a strong enough resolution.
What's unique about this story is unfortunately just the adopted brothers. Everything else, I have read in other, stronger books. Amelia and Brooks are just not strongly written enough for me to be satisfied with this book.
However, I still look forward to what else Christ Desire writes. I think she has a lot of great stories to tell. I just hope that in the future, we will get more fleshed-out characters instead of super edgy plot points.