Rapid Falls

I think i'm on a roll right now. This book wasn't really long, and it was pretty easy to read. 3 books already in the year, I'm on the right pace! How is everyone adjusting to the new year? I work at a school, so I have to get back in the swing of things. It's been surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. 

                                                 Rapid Falls by Amber Cowie

I let my boyfriend, Eddie, pick my next book and this is what he chose. It was actually a pretty good choice, because I got this one through Kindle Unlimited (BEST investment EVER if your a reader) and it's been sitting on my Kindle for quite a while now. I love this cover, this is how I pictured the Falls when I was reading the story. 

"Never forget that the things you don't suspect can hurt you the most."

This was yet another book with no likeable characters. 

The book was about two sister who have endured a pretty terrible tragedy. When the oldest sister, Cara was a senior in high school they go to a party, Anna the youngest sister was supposed to stay sober so Cara could enjoy herself, and instead she ends up driving impaired leading to an accident that kills Cara's boyfriend, Jesse and sends Anna to jail for 3 years. Many years later you see that Cara has moved on, has a husband and a daughter, and Anna is struggling. Their parents are estranged, basically the family was torn apart from this tragedy. 

I don't want to spoil this book, because the best part for me was reading the chapters from the past that build you up to what really happened that night, and then present day chapters that show how Cara is basically spending her whole life taking care of Anna. 

I felt like after the first few chapters I pretty much saw where the story was going. I'm not going to lie and say that as soon as I started reading I figured out the actual events, because when they were revealed it was not what I was expecting at all. 

"Even at thirteen, I knew the best way to lose something was to want it too much."

Cara is a horrible person. There really is no other way to describe her. She has basically spent her whole life comparing herself to Anna. In the chapters from their high school years she is very insecure, very calculating, and sometimes just downright mean. You basically see right from the start of the present day chapters that she is still exactly the same. She has a secret and when I'm saying she will go to ANY length to make sure it stays a secret, i'm not exaggerating. 

"Illness, especially mental illness, strips a person and their family of basic dignity."

Anna is not really all that great of a person either. She is very sneaky and doesn't really care about anyone else's feelings or how her actions affect them. Towards the end of the book I started to feel sorry for her. You could tell she had obviously been through a lot, and just didn't know how to place those feelings. I wish we could have had some chapters in Anna's view so we could see what was going on in her mind about everything that happened. I feel like her point of view actually might have been a little more interesting. 

The story really dives into the fact that Anna is an alcoholic, she causes problems in Cara's marriage, and is a mess. What the story doesn't go into much detail about is the fact that Cara is an alcoholic also. I guess she can hide hers a little better so it isn't as noticeable to people at first. 

When the events of that night are finally revealed I was pretty disgusted. I had a feeling that things didn't go down the way they seemed like they did in the beginning of the book, but I wasn't expecting it to go that direction. The end was terrible. I was not happy with it at all. It felt like the one character (don't want to spoil anything) got away with everything. She could just go on about her life and not have any worries anymore, and it just made me sick. That might have been the author's intentions, just to show you that there really are people out there that can get away with anything. 

Overall I'm giving this book 3 STARS. I liked how the story went from present day to past, it really kept me interested in what was happening. I really wanted someone else's point of view rather than just Cara. I think that would have added a little more depth to the story. I did not like the ending, it just felt like it needed something.