Review: The Lonely

Title: The  Lonely

Author: Tara Brown

Date of Publication: February 2, 2013

Formats Available: Paperback, E-book

Buy This Book: Amazon

Synopsis: The truth is subjective to what the lonely lets in.

Emalyn Spicer has lived with it for a long time. She thinks it goes back further than her memories do. She knows it goes back further than the OCD.

When she arrives at college, her OCD's and the lonely refuse to let her have her wish to be normal.

When she meets Sebastian and starts to fall for him, she lets herself believe it's possible to outrun the things chasing her from the past. But how to you get away from the things inside of you? How do you run from yourself?

Just as she gives up and succumbs to the lonely, the unthinkable happens. She finds herself once again trapped in the dark, once again held against her will.

This time she meets the lonely head on. In the darkest corners of her mind, she discovers there is more to her world than she ever imagined. She discovers that the lonely was there for her, protecting her from herself and her secrets.

How far would you go to find yourself?

This is a dark and captivating novel, tread lightly.

My Review:

I absolutely love reading about characters with mental illnesses. I don't know why but I've always had a fascination with abnormal psychology so when I saw the description for this novel I knew that I had to read it. Though I started off horribly confused I quickly fell into the confusing and OCD controlled world of Emalyn and the constant struggles she had to go through.

The Lonely started off as one of the most confusing books I've ever read. I had no idea what was going on, who any of the characters were, or how they came to be in the situation they were in; however as the novel progressed Brown slowly revealed important plot developments and even though I was in the dark I started to like the confusion.  The first half of the novel really was fantastic, from reading about Emalyn struggling with her OCD to her brutal kidnapping I was absolutely riveted to the novel.

Though the beginning of the novel was fascinating, the last half of the novel really fell flat. The first half had a psychological thriller feel to it but after about 50% the novel took a turn from thriller and into smut territory. While I'm not generally one to dislike smut this wasn't even good smut, Emalyn and her indecisiveness paired with the frustrating  characters, made the last part of this novel almost painful to read. Not to mention the BDSM aspects, which I was most definitely not a fan of.

I've said it once and I'll say it again, I have absolutely no respect for characters who let men beat them and like it. One of the most disgusting trends in literature is the BDSM genre and if I'd known that this novel was going to go in that direction I wouldn't have read it. I really did like Emalyn, and her story was intriguing, but as soon as she started to enjoy (and get turned on by) getting beaten I was just done.

The first half of this novel deserves four stars, but the second half really brought the overall rating down. Though there were a lot of redeeming qualities going for this novel I just couldn't get over the BDSM aspect and how uncomfortable it made me.

2/5

*I received a copy of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.