I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore (Blog, Twitter, Goodreads)Published by Penguin on April 7th 2015
Genres: Adolescence, Family, Love & Romance, Parents, Social Issues, Young Adult
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
She can be anyone you want her to be. Vivian was raised with one purpose in life: to exact revenge on behalf of her mother. Manipulative and cruel, Mother has deprived Vivian not only of a childhood, but of an original identity. With an endless arsenal of enticing personalities at her disposal, Vivian is a veritable weapon of deception. And she can destroy anyone. When it’s time to strike, she enrolls in a boarding school on the English moors, where she will zero in on her target: sweet and innocent Ben, the son of the man who broke Mother’s heart twenty years ago. Anyone…except for the woman who created her.With every secret she uncovers, Vivian comes one step closer to learning who she really is. But the more she learns about herself, the more dangerous this cat and mouse game becomes. Because Mother will stop at nothing to make sure the truth dies with her.From the Hardcover edition.
Vivian was raised by her mother to become whoever she wants her to be. She’s a tool, she’s a weapon. And when her time comes to do the task that she was raised to do, she’ll do it because she owes her mother.
I’m not entirely sure what I think of this book if I’m being totally honest with you all.
Here’s the thing.
I spent most of this book thinking WTF … how is she this mad about this. Okay… I can’t do this spoiler free, I just can’t. So beware.
(view spoiler)
Like I said, I spent the majority of the book thinking who the hell gets this mad about that… yeah, okay, the first few weeks you probably want to nut punch the guy. Repeatedly. But to plot this scheme of revenge over it… not so much.
So you kind of know that there has to be something else. Something much worse going on here.
Honestly when I found out what it was, I was all Ohhhhhh YES! Now it all makes more sense. This is where it gets tricky, because when the twists and turns start coming out, I actually found that I was torn on how I felt about this.
I even made Erin read it as soon as possible so I could tell her why I was so confused.
I think if I had found out a bit earlier on what some of the bigger issue with Mother was… I mean I never really believed that she was this pissed off because she got dumped and so I spent a lot of time in my head while reading saying “WTF … get over it.” I think if we had found out some of that earlier, a lot of what happens in the first half of this book would make a bit more sense.
So there. I guess I have a timing issue with some of the reveals. (hide spoiler)]
ALL that said, I did find the characters intriguing. We don’t get to know many of them on more than a superficial level, and that totally actually works for this story. Vivian however is so interesting… her cold and calculating demeanor… her determination to exact the revenge her mother deserves… it’s all so damn interesting and Moore gives this story a bit of a gothic feel to it and it completely works.
While this wasn’t a total homerun for me, I definitely found that I really loved some aspects of it. I’m definitely going to be looking for more from Moore in the future!
Thank you to the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
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