Review: Survival by A.M.Hargrove

Title: Survival
Author: A.M. Hargrove
Source: Purchased
Genre: Young Adult
Buy: Amazon ~*~ Barnes & Noble
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Caution: May contain spoilers

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"Maybe I was caught between the two worlds. I was having serious trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality."

While on a backpacking trip in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, nineteen-year-old Maddie Pearce finds her world has been thrown into a vortex and is madly spinning toward the impossible. Abducted by a mad psychopath, Maddie narrowly escapes with her life. But that is only the beginning. Her mysterious rescuer introduces her to a world that Maddie has difficulty accepting as reality. Will this strikingly gorgeous stranger be the key to her future or will she return to her mundane world, scarred from her experience? Follow Maddie as she is forced to make difficult decisions that carry her to mysterious places.

~synopsis from Goodreads

My Thoughts:

I ended up getting this one by chance upon looking up the blog tour for this book. The idea of it was interesting and I thought it was worth reading. And I was right! The story is told in four parts: first from Maddie’s POV, second from Rayn’s, then the last two are told in the third person. I’m usually not a fan of multiple points of view, or the third person, but I was okay with it this time. Maybe it’s because it needed to be told this way. In any case, it worked.

The beginning told us mostly about Maddie’s life prior to and at college. She doesn’t have her parents anymore and is on her own now. It was a lot of background and not very interesting until it got to the point where she gets abducted. Then things get complicated and very intriguing, because… enter Rayn.

His people wish to save her after she gets attacked. And he is drawn to her, as she is to him. Even though it should be simple for two people who feel this way, it won’t be simple for him. Because of who he is, he is not allowed to be with her. They try to stay away, but can’t. They go together, and you can feel it come across the page with how he speaks to, comforts, and holds her. They have something deeper and want it to continue. This of course will not be an easy task. They begin the journey and you hope alongside them for a happy ending. And you guys know how much I love swoon worthy scenes… there were plenty of those moments throughout the book.

The parts dealing with the guardians, their background, was different than I’m used to. When there are a lot of details for stories like these, it’s like learning a new subject. Eventually you get the hang of it, but when you’re unfamiliar with the genre it’s confusing at first.

Despite that, I really enjoyed Survival. You can’t help but keep reading because you want to know what happens next for them. When I finished it, I was left with a cliffhanger that made me want to get right into the sequel. I adored the love between Maddie and Rayn, even though it happened a little fast. And although Maddie was sometimes really silly in the things she said, she was still relatable. I can’t wait to dive into A.M. Hargrove’s sequel to Survival called Resurrection, and the prequel, Beginnings.

My Rating:

Very Good: Stay up late