A review by bluekaren
Unforgivable by Amy Reed

4.0

I have to admit right away that I didn’t read [b:Invincible|22960609|Invincible (Invincible, #1)|Amy Reed|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1412878148l/22960609._SY75_.jpg|25702334]. The real issue now is “did I feel like I missed anything by not reading it?” Nope. I caught everything I needed to enjoy this story as a stand-alone.

I am not even going to try and re-cap this story. Every detail is a spoiler for this book or probably the first book in this series.

Things I loved about this story:

*Marcus is a complex many faceted character. He might have a drug problem at the beginning of this story, but when we see the reasons he needs to escape reality drugs are actually the lesser of a few evils.
*His relationship with his mother and father is complicated. (i would say parents, but they are separated so each relationship is complicated in it’s own way) They are present in this story and I loved their interactions.
*Marcus is roaming aimlessly throughout much of this book. He gets motivated and then it falls apart for him. Nothing is an easy fix and that is so realistic. He felt like a real person to me.
*Evie makes some tough choices in this story, but I am damn proud of her for it. Evie’s story is a whole ‘nother story (literally, see what I did there). The snippets we got of Evie’s story made me really curious about her as a person and as Marcus’s obsession.

This story covered some brutal topics like; death of a sibling, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, racial prejudice, interracial love, divorce, and self mutilation. The author portrayed so many situations in this story with tack and truthfulness. The characters weren’t always right, but the situations were pretty realistic. I can hardly believe all the shit this kid Marcus loved through. The worst part of Marcus’s situation is losing Evie, who meant so much to him. Even after he learns the truth about her, he can hardly believe she doesn’t want to see him anymore. Evie has issues for sure, but they are so well matched.

I devoured this book in just a few sessions. I loved how the story is broke up into chapters titled: here (about Marcus right now), there (about things that happened in his past), and you (where he addresses his thoughts to Evie). This was a heavy and quick read. I actually want to go back and read Invincible now.