“She can be anyone you want her to be.
And she can destroy anyone.
Anyone...except for the woman who created her.
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.
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.
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.”
Review:
I thought this was going to be more of a black widow type of story, but this isn’t really that. Our main character has a mission - seduce the son of the man who seduced her mom. We don’t know anything beyond that and neither does our main character. All she knows is the mission, she doesn’t know much about why she’s doing it, and more importantly, she doesn’t know what will happen once the mission is complete.
It was very interesting to see Viv bounce between the personas she has to juggle, while also coming to terms with who she is outside of Mother’s grasp. We see the signs, but after a lifetime of abuse and training, it’s hard to second guess it all, but I loved seeing her try to figure it all out. Arthur is the biggest piece to her puzzle and the best part of it. I loved every bit of him. He himself was a mystery and he had his own mission that we really weren’t sure what it would lead to. And oh dear sweet Ben. What a schmuck. I don’t know if Viv is just so amazing at her job or if he’s just an idiot but either way there was no hope for that boy.
Now there were a few things I thought were left unresolved. First, Arabella. We know that Vivian’s mission was to seduce Ben, a popular kid. But Arabella, the popular girl stereotype, was so confusing to me. Vivian antagonizes the popular bully so that she looks more like a victim so that Ben wants to protect her, but it escalated beyond that and I didn’t understand why. They both took this rivalry to a whole different level and then it’s never resolved. I don’t understand the point of that.
And then Claire, the best friend character. She’s not Viv’s best friend because she has to focus on the mission and blah blah blah, but has a whole other side story that we never address. We just kinda watch it happen. ????? It made no sense why the author would have this whole side tangent if it had no affect whatsoever on the overall story. In fact, both Claire’s and Arabella’s plot lines held no significant relevance to the overall story and it confuses me why they were included in the first place.
Was the author trying to be like “Despite it all, Vivian has friends and enemies just like every other teenager”? Because if so, uh, NO. They all did some fucked up shit that should not be normalized. There are definitely better ways to show that.
Don’t get me wrong, the whole mystery of Vivian and why she’s doing this and the people ACTUALLY involved in the plot was intriguing. But I thought all the pieces of this story would somehow come together, but that’s not what happened.
I’m on the fence with this book. It’s a lot of uncertainty that left a bad taste in my mouth.
Lemme know your own thoughts and feels down below in the comments!
Comments
Post a Comment