Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Ruthless

Title: Ruthless
Author: Carolyn Lee Adams
Series: Standalone
Number of Pages: 248
Date Read: 6/1/16 
Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Survival, Contemporary 


Synopsis (Found on Goodreads.com):

Ruth Carver has always competed like her life depends on it. Ambitious. Tough. Maybe even mean. It’s no wonder people call her ruthless.

When she wakes up with a concussion in the bed of a moving pickup truck, Ruth realizes she has been entered into a contest she can’t afford to lose.

At a remote, rotting cabin deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ruth’s blindfold comes off and she finds herself face-to-face with her captor: A man who believes his mission is to punish bad girls like Ruth. A man who has done this six times before.

The other girls were never heard from again, but Ruth won’t go down easy. She escapes into the wilderness, but her hunter is close at her heels. That’s when the real battle begins. That’s when Ruth must decides just how far she’ll go in order to survive.

Back home, they called her Ruthless. They had no idea just how right they were.

My Review:

This book was ok but it made me so angry.

The plot of the book is a girl trying to escape her captor. Ruth is taken by a man up to a remote cabin in the mountains. She doesn't know the reason why or what he wants. She eventually escapes. The rest of the book is her escaping and trying to find civilization while he is hunting her. Along the way we learn a few things about the man and what made him turn out to be a psychopath serial killer through flashbacks in between chapters. We also learn a bit about Ruth told in flash back of 5 years ago when she was attending the horse event. This is also told between the chapters and is alternated between chapters with the man's history. 

I loved that the book opened in suspense. Ruth is just waking up in the bed of a moving truck and the first chapter is her trying to work out where she is. This book has a lot of suspense in it for the fact that Ruth was being hunted through mountainous woods. You never knew if the wolfman (that's what she calls him) is just around the bend and if he's really going to catch her. I liked the creepy atmosphere of the book and I enjoyed the journey of survival Ruth had to take. I did think that every event that happened to her was adding too much to the story. Events just kept piling up and up and its hard to think that a person could survive all those things happening to them. 

The sad thing is that I didn't really like the characters.

Ruth was ok. Some things she was smart but other things she was incredible stupid. I liked that she didn't give up and was determined to survive. I also liked that she became delirious after days of running and scavenging for food. It made the story believable that the things happening to her were taking a toll on her body and mind. Ruth was incredibly brave and resourceful. But I didn't like her all that much. What we get of her personality was that she was mean, difficult to be around, rude and basically a brat. 

Then there was her stupidity that made me not care if she survived because hey if she didn't care then I didn't. 

Potential Spoilers ahead for this paragraph:
So she escapes her captor and is on the run for awhile. Then she reaches an empty house and sees the wolfman after her so goes in the house to hide. Of course he gets in because there wouldn't be a story if he didn't. However she gets the upper hand and takes him hostage. And what does she do? She gives him water and decides to have a conversation with him! I'm like wtf? Get out of there! In my head I was thinking she should shoot and kill him. Or she could of shot him in both kneecaps and arms so that he is immobile and she can get away. But no....she talks to him? At teh very least she could of knocked him out with something. After she's done chatting she LEAVES the guy tied up and goes to the bathroom!. She goes and takes her damn time cleaning all her wounds. At least if she knocked him out or shot him she could take the time to clean herself up. And then she's surprised when he escapes. I mean really? There were so many times she could of shot and killed him or shoot him in the knees and arms. But she didn't want to kill him. F that! I'd of taken his own gun and shot him in the face!

The man was your run of the mill psycho who had mommy and daddy issues that made him the way he was. Of course I hated him but he was very smart and very prepared to kill Ruth. He just didn't count on her survival instinct. It's clear that she was not his first victim by the state of the cabin. He was just gross, evil and psychotic. He liked to kill and found excuses to do it. 

I'm also not sure if there is a paranormal element to this book. Ruth has hallucinations that actually help her to escape and find her way. However I'm not sure if the hallucinations were real or not. Ruth also got feelings about things that were happening with her family that were correct but again I don't know if it was her intuition or something paranormal. 

The book was short and I breezed through it. I liked the overall plot and the survival instincts of Ruth but I just didn't like and couldn't connect with either character.



Rating: B

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