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A review by emeliaheartss
Keeping 13 by Chloe Walsh
4.0
☾⌑܀ Rating - 4.75 ☆,☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀ This review may contain spoilers if you haven't read Keeping 13 or Binding 13, I encourage you to not read this review until after you finish the books.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Keeping 13 starts in the year 2005 in Cork, Ireland. With a dual POVs of two characters called Shannon Lynch, victim of abuse from her own family, resulting in emotional and physical damage. And Johnny Kavanagh, all-star popular rugby player recovering from surgery, desperate to free Shannon from the shackles of her house.☾⌑܀
“I swear, I had never seen anything so fucking beautiful. Freedom suited her.”
☾⌑܀Shannon Lynch, she got away, she found freedom away from her horrid house and she finally has her happy ending. So much has happened to her, but she now can enjoy being a teenage girl hanging out with Claire and Lizzie and her boyfriend Johnny. Johnny and Shannon had tons of romantic scenes (to the misfortune of her mother). She finally isn't trapped and starts rebelling about the orders in this house. I will forever hate Teddy Lynch though, no words can describe my hatred luckily the man is in the grave now. After he tried killing his own children though, the scene where Shannon starts calling out 'Mammy' will forever break me. Despite everything, she still sought out her mother when her father suddenly arrived. ☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀The fire at the house broke me. Especially Marie's death. She didn't deserve that fate, even though I could never form a opinion on her at least during her last moments she was able to make the best decision for her children, for Joey and Shannon, and the others. Now they are all living with the Kavanagh's experiencing being children. And healthy and not malnourished anymore.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Johnny Kavanagh, despite his love and success for rugby didn't choose it for once. He chose one more year of happiness before he decided to do rugby professionally. Focusing on his friends and Shannon obviously. But I feel so bad with him about how much guilt he holds for not saving Marie. Knowing it probably replays in his mind daily.. At least he beat the shit out of Teddy weeks before the fire, as he deserved it. On the other side, I loved him and Gibsie's scenes especially him being over protective of him and the funny scenes. Especially when reading that he's going on the plane, and thinking Shannon was the one full on sobbing at him leaving before it turned out to be Gibsie. Like Shannon, he grew a lot character-wise.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Their relationship grew after their internal conflict in Binding 13, even though their was lots of debate involving sex for a while. Since they did get pretty freaky in some chapters.... Despite their freaky chapters their were honest loving moments like the cinema, music festival, camping trip and more. Despite all of Shannon's family especially her mum saying that they'd be toxic like Teddy and Marie. They defied everything. Even Darren admitted after Johnny's father managed to try to get Joey out of jail for beating up Bella's boyfriend after everything Bella did to Shannon that Johnny wasn't like Marie said. They were always their for each other despite everything.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀In my review of Binding 13, I mentioned one of my problems with the book that not much characters were shown. This was not the case in Keeping 13, several characters arcs were explored and shown. One of the main characters being Gerald Gibson aka Gibsie, we finally learn more about his past and oh I just thought he was going to be comic relief. But his past is extremely bad, like what do you mean his father and sister drowned when he was little meaning he's scared of water. Oh my days, if anything else happens to me I'm going to throw hands. Also his conflict with Lizzie aka Lizzie Young was explored, they hate each other due to a guy called Mark? I can't remember whether it was mentioned what his relation to Gibsie was but I think he might be a brother, cousin maybe even step-brother? But Lizzie blames him for her sister dying and saying she can't separate Mark from Gibsie which is a bit harsh if you ask me. We also dive deeper into his and Claire's friendship/love seeing they are now parents of baby kittens, and how Gibsie loves Claire but doesn't want the relationship to go badly like his own parents and how Gibsie would drop everything for Claire like defending her during the camping trip.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Other characters like Joey, was explored where you learn his coping mechanism from all his trauma is drugs. And how he has to go to rehab to cover from addiction. You see his relationship with Aoife anymore and how much they love each other but Joey hates Aoife for loving him because she deserves better. Him going mute when Marie dying broke me too, I think his and Aoife's book is next. I don't know whether I'm going to love them more than Johnny and Shannon but I'm excited to learn more about them.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Disappointingly, we don't learn a lot about Katie. Which I'm annoyed about since we only see her as Hughie's girlfriend, like she's only their due to Hughie and only friends with him. Which is annoying. But in the last chapters, something is clearly going on between the two of them like arguments or something. We do learn a bit about Feely and Hughie and all the rest but I'm just honestly going to skip talking about them. Feely and Lizzie sounds cute though, I think they might be endgame as I don't like Lizzie with that nobody Pierce O' Neil.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Overall, if we're going to Aoife's and Joey's books next, the themes will probably be the same along the lines of child abuse, abuse from families. But now we'll have Joey's addiction problems. As well as seeing Aoife's character and whatever problems she's going on with. I think everything that happened in Joey's and Shannon's books have been covered nicely even though I wish the books were longer because I need more of my babies.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀I sobbed my heart out at parts of this book, I hope the rest won't be as emotional otherwise I may be a sobbing mess.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀ This review may contain spoilers if you haven't read Keeping 13 or Binding 13, I encourage you to not read this review until after you finish the books.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Keeping 13 starts in the year 2005 in Cork, Ireland. With a dual POVs of two characters called Shannon Lynch, victim of abuse from her own family, resulting in emotional and physical damage. And Johnny Kavanagh, all-star popular rugby player recovering from surgery, desperate to free Shannon from the shackles of her house.☾⌑܀
“I swear, I had never seen anything so fucking beautiful. Freedom suited her.”
☾⌑܀Shannon Lynch, she got away, she found freedom away from her horrid house and she finally has her happy ending. So much has happened to her, but she now can enjoy being a teenage girl hanging out with Claire and Lizzie and her boyfriend Johnny. Johnny and Shannon had tons of romantic scenes (to the misfortune of her mother). She finally isn't trapped and starts rebelling about the orders in this house. I will forever hate Teddy Lynch though, no words can describe my hatred luckily the man is in the grave now. After he tried killing his own children though, the scene where Shannon starts calling out 'Mammy' will forever break me. Despite everything, she still sought out her mother when her father suddenly arrived. ☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀The fire at the house broke me. Especially Marie's death. She didn't deserve that fate, even though I could never form a opinion on her at least during her last moments she was able to make the best decision for her children, for Joey and Shannon, and the others. Now they are all living with the Kavanagh's experiencing being children. And healthy and not malnourished anymore.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Johnny Kavanagh, despite his love and success for rugby didn't choose it for once. He chose one more year of happiness before he decided to do rugby professionally. Focusing on his friends and Shannon obviously. But I feel so bad with him about how much guilt he holds for not saving Marie. Knowing it probably replays in his mind daily.. At least he beat the shit out of Teddy weeks before the fire, as he deserved it. On the other side, I loved him and Gibsie's scenes especially him being over protective of him and the funny scenes. Especially when reading that he's going on the plane, and thinking Shannon was the one full on sobbing at him leaving before it turned out to be Gibsie. Like Shannon, he grew a lot character-wise.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Their relationship grew after their internal conflict in Binding 13, even though their was lots of debate involving sex for a while. Since they did get pretty freaky in some chapters.... Despite their freaky chapters their were honest loving moments like the cinema, music festival, camping trip and more. Despite all of Shannon's family especially her mum saying that they'd be toxic like Teddy and Marie. They defied everything. Even Darren admitted after Johnny's father managed to try to get Joey out of jail for beating up Bella's boyfriend after everything Bella did to Shannon that Johnny wasn't like Marie said. They were always their for each other despite everything.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀In my review of Binding 13, I mentioned one of my problems with the book that not much characters were shown. This was not the case in Keeping 13, several characters arcs were explored and shown. One of the main characters being Gerald Gibson aka Gibsie, we finally learn more about his past and oh I just thought he was going to be comic relief. But his past is extremely bad, like what do you mean his father and sister drowned when he was little meaning he's scared of water. Oh my days, if anything else happens to me I'm going to throw hands. Also his conflict with Lizzie aka Lizzie Young was explored, they hate each other due to a guy called Mark? I can't remember whether it was mentioned what his relation to Gibsie was but I think he might be a brother, cousin maybe even step-brother? But Lizzie blames him for her sister dying and saying she can't separate Mark from Gibsie which is a bit harsh if you ask me. We also dive deeper into his and Claire's friendship/love seeing they are now parents of baby kittens, and how Gibsie loves Claire but doesn't want the relationship to go badly like his own parents and how Gibsie would drop everything for Claire like defending her during the camping trip.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Other characters like Joey, was explored where you learn his coping mechanism from all his trauma is drugs. And how he has to go to rehab to cover from addiction. You see his relationship with Aoife anymore and how much they love each other but Joey hates Aoife for loving him because she deserves better. Him going mute when Marie dying broke me too, I think his and Aoife's book is next. I don't know whether I'm going to love them more than Johnny and Shannon but I'm excited to learn more about them.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Disappointingly, we don't learn a lot about Katie. Which I'm annoyed about since we only see her as Hughie's girlfriend, like she's only their due to Hughie and only friends with him. Which is annoying. But in the last chapters, something is clearly going on between the two of them like arguments or something. We do learn a bit about Feely and Hughie and all the rest but I'm just honestly going to skip talking about them. Feely and Lizzie sounds cute though, I think they might be endgame as I don't like Lizzie with that nobody Pierce O' Neil.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀Overall, if we're going to Aoife's and Joey's books next, the themes will probably be the same along the lines of child abuse, abuse from families. But now we'll have Joey's addiction problems. As well as seeing Aoife's character and whatever problems she's going on with. I think everything that happened in Joey's and Shannon's books have been covered nicely even though I wish the books were longer because I need more of my babies.☾⌑܀
☾⌑܀I sobbed my heart out at parts of this book, I hope the rest won't be as emotional otherwise I may be a sobbing mess.☾⌑܀