Book Review: Shackled by Angela Carling

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Title: Shackled

Author: Angela Carling

# Of Pages: 212

Publisher: Acacia Publishing

Publication Date: June 1, 2012

Level: Young Adult

Rating: 3 Hearts

Note: Many thanks to Acacia Publishing for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Synopsis

(From Amazon.com)

After shy, quiet Lucy and her family move from their small hometown in Minnesota to Seattle, Washington, she is surprised when Ryan, the most popular boy at school, asks her out. Soon, she is swept up in a whirlwind romance and her naive and trusting nature allows her to fall head over heels in love with her too-good-to-be-true suitor. Suddenly, Lucy finds herself enraptured by the excitement of her new relationship, leaving her blinded to the warning signs of danger ahead. Can her fairy tale romance last, or will she find that her prince charming is more like a wolf in sheep's clothing?

My Verdict

New girl Lucy moves to Washington with her family when her dad gets a new job. When the good looking and seemingly perfect, Ryan gives her a tour of the school, Lucy immediately falls for him. Their relationship moves at super speed before Lucy realizes just how deep she’s gotten herself, only by then it’s too late.

I was a little nervous about reading this book, knowing it focused on an abusive relationship, but I think the author handled the subject really well: portraying the ugliness of abuse without getting graphic like other books I’ve read.

Ryan’s abuse is rarely physical, it’s more emotional and controlling. He’s absolutely obsessed with Lucy and wants her all to himself. He tries to control her life as much as possible by pushing all their friends away and only hanging out alone. He completely melts down if she talks to another guy or brings up hanging out with anyone else. He even goes so far as to put a bug in her cell phone so he can make sure she isn’t talking to other guys.

The story is told from three different perspectives: Lucy, Ryan, and their friend, Mason. I’m glad the author chose to do this because it helped me to understand where Ryan was coming from and how he got to be the way that he was. Without those chapters from his point of view I would have looked at him a lot differently. 

This book starts with a prologue that is taken from one of the most intense scenes at the end of the book. It is used to draw you in and keep you reading. I must say it worked. Once I got into the story, I was constantly thinking about it while at work or elsewhere wanting to know what would happen to Lucy next.

Despite how good the story was, I did have some slight issues with the writing. The first being, that there were a fair amount of grammatical errors sprinkled throughout that should have been caught by the editor. Secondly, there were a lot of repetitive descriptions.

This is the second book by this author that I’ve read and I noticed that she ended them both in a similar fashion. The whole book builds up to this one big climax and then she skips ahead a few months to tie things up without dealing with the after effects of that climactic event. This is something that bothered me with Unbreakable Love as well, but when it happened again in this one I was kind of annoyed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the story but think it could have been better had there been some more revisions and an ending that dealt with the immediate after effects of what happened.