Book Synopsis:
Sisters Leo and Paris Hollings have only ever had each other to rely on. They can't trust their mother, who hops from city to city and from guy to guy, or their gambler stepfather, who's moved them all to Las Vegas. It's just the two of them: Paris, who's always been the dreamer, and Leo, who has a real future in mind—going to Stanford, becoming a doctor, falling in love. But Leo isn't going anywhere right now, except driving around Vegas all night with her sister.
Until Paris ditches Leo at the Heartbreak Hotel Diner, where moments before they had been talking with physics student Max Sullivan. Outside, Leo finds a cryptic note from Paris—a clue. Is it some kind of game? Where is Paris, and why has she disappeared? When Leo reluctantly accepts Max's offer of help, the two find themselves following a string of clues through Vegas and beyond. But the search for the truth is not a straight line. And neither is the path to secrets Leo and Max hold inside.
My Review:
2/5 stars. This book had a lot of twists and talked about some heavy stuff, but the story itself wasn’t enjoyable. I wasn’t attached to the characters or even super invested in the mystery. Also, the bad language and sexual content was way too much and unnecessary.
The writing style of the book was immediately weird to me but I couldn't tell why. It was just hard to get through. Toward the end, it included the infamous line (or some variation) of "I exhale a breath I didn't even know I was holding" and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Some aspects of the plot were also kind of confusing. When did Paris have time to leave the messages? The logistics of everything didn't always make sense.
I didn't care about the characters at all. I found myself getting super annoyed at Leo, the main character, and her actions. She was reckless and didn't think things through. I also didn't care about the love interest, Max, or the developing relationship. They went from chatting to having a full make-out session on the beach in the span of a few chapters. It moved too fast and wasn't cute or swoon-worthy.
Leo and Max were also so negative all the time. Their outlooks on people's motives and life in general were so pessimistic. I don't know if we as readers were supposed to agree with their opinions or not, but I definitely didn't. They both had slightly different perspectives, but I agreed with neither.
This book had a lot of plot twists, but none of them were really that shocking or crazy to me because I didn't care about the plot or the characters. I wasn't invested in the story as it was to be blown away by some new development. The second plot twist that Paris had never even left Vegas the whole time was more interesting to me than the others.
The only positive comment I have is that I liked Leo and Paris' sister relationship. Hearing Leo talk about her childhood memories of them eating at the movie theater bar was cute, and the way Paris was defending/protecting Leo was honorable. Other than that, I really didn't like this book.
Content:
Language: Sh-t, f--k, p-ss, s-xy, d-mn, a--, h-ll, b--ch, d-ck, d--che, God's name taken in vain
Sexual Content: Innuendos, talk of sex, mentions of strippers, kissing, tongue-kissing, touching bare skin, a make-out scene that lasted way too long, SPOILER: it's revealed that the main character was raped by her stepfather
Drugs/alcohol: Lots of casual, underage drinking, someone tells a story about a teen got "very, very drunk"
Violence/gore: A girl falls off a balcony and gets permanent brain damage
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