Review: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Author: April Genevieve Tucholke

Publication Date: August 15th 2013         

Publisher: Dial



You stop fearing the devil when you’re holding his hand…

Nothing much exciting rolls through Violet White’s sleepy, seaside town… until River West comes along. River rents the guest house behind Violet’s crumbling estate, and as eerie, grim things start to happen, Violet begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard.

Is River just a crooked-smiling liar with pretty eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something more?

Violet’s grandmother always warned her about the Devil, but she never said he could be a dark-haired boy who takes naps in the sun, who likes coffee, who kisses you in a cemetery... who makes you want to kiss back.

Violet’s already so knee-deep in love, she can’t see straight. And that’s just how River likes it.

 

 

All her life Violet White has heard stories about the Devil from her grandmother Freddie, they're rich, live on this big mansion on top of a mountain, but money goes only so far and they're not as rich as you think. Freddie's dead, Violet and her twin brother Luke, are living alone as their painter parents who care more about paint than their own flesh and blood are off in Paris after drying up most of the money that's left. Violet and Luke are running out on money and have no option but to rent the guesthouse, and in comes River, all cocky and arrogant and kind and strange and things start happening.

Troubles stirred and the Devil's just around the corner.

 

Well, that was...disturbing. Disturbing? Yes, I think I'll stick with that. I'll stick with that. Yes. Disturbing. Can I burn my eyes out now? Please? I had to bribe myself with white chocolate pretzels.

It was creepy and disturbing and grey and weird and things don't make sense and starting to become  twisted and backwards hillbilly with the brother sister and someone took a wrong turn and I want to burn my eyes out and I feel a little disturbed because it was sick and Stephen King kind of twisted and I want the last six hours of my life back because I think I'm scarred and It was bat shit crazy and I need to take a breath.

Okay.

I'll calm down.

I think this book left me with scars.                                                                                                                              

Jumbled thoughts strung together, you get the idea of how it's written.

It's not seamless, it doesn't flow that good, but it worked. Damn, it freaking worked I tell you.

Let's start by saying,  I don't want to say I liked it, because it was all kinds of wrong and a million other kinds of wrong, but it was good. It was freaking good, and scary and Gothic and atmospheric and gritty and violent and a little psychotic crazy and kind of like a car crash because I wanted to stop reading, but I couldn't and I hope to God there isn't a sequel because I'd have to read it and I really don't want to and now I see that there is and oh God I think I might cry but I, I...I loved it. You shouldn't. Just like you shouldn't like River, but I did. I do.

Violet was a strange one, and a little step over from -wearing-your-dead-grandmothers-clothes- quirky and one step from -standing-outside-your-brothers-bedroom-door-while-your-friends-in-there freaking creepy and crazy. She was, well, most of the time rational, and calm,  but she was also irrational and naive and stupid and so unhealthy when it came to River.

She was hurting though she wouldn't admit it to herself, and no matter how much she hated her brother, she loved him, too. There was a love/hate relationship with everything and she was a little judgemental, okay, a lot judgemental when it came to Sunshine.

Luke, oh for all that is feminine!

On behalf of the feminists, hell, behalf on females, could I knee Luke in the nethers? Because for real, sexism has nothing on this boy.

Oh, sorry Luke, does that hurt? Go back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, 'kay?

That's all there is to say, sorry. Didn't like him. Won't like him, he was rude and disgusting and weird and ugh.

River, oh River I want to hate you. I think I do, and for all the bravado he puts on he's just a hurt little boy who doesn't know how to deal with his feelings, so he hides and buries them and tries to forget them. It was sad, really but he was kind to Violet in his own way, and protective. I think deep down, he's a really, really good guy. He just needs a little help. And towards the end, you get a spark of hope, and think, Oh yay, it's not River...Oh, River, no river no.

Sunshine, I really don't know why she was there, just for Violet to judge? Or just to sex up a book? I didn't get her, she was just...empty? I don't know. There wasn't much there. Oh, and another thing, who's Violet to judge Sunshine flaunting what she got when she knew River for less than half a day and then was sleeping next to him? I call bullshit.

Here's my major stitch in an otherwise perfectly effective book, can you honestly tell me what the story was about? I know who it's about, I know the character, I know what happens, all these random bits and pieces and random acts and scenes of kids going missing, people seeing things, murder, etc, etc, and I know the ultimatum, but what was the point of it? What was the story?

Alright, this isn't really a review and more or a ranting blabbering review because I honestly don't know where to start. It's... Ahh. I want to hate it, because of what happens and the characters and everything, but I just don't. It just...is. I And that, in my opinion, when you can hate a book and love it at the same time, is a pretty damn good one. I also wrote this review three weeks ago. Know what I think now? I must've been drunk.

Rating: 3.8/5