Destroyed Tour: Review + Giveaway

Welcome to my stop on the Destroyed blog tour! Today I'll be sharing my review of the book - and don't forget to enter the awesome giveaways! To follow the rest of the tour, click on the banner above.

Destroyed (Dark Road #1)
Author: Krys Fenner
Genre: YA Psychological Thriller
Release Date: October 17, 2014

Description:

Bella has lived a rather boring life, but that all quickly changes. A new position in school forces her to take charge. A new boyfriend (her first), Jeremiah, hands her a confidence she has never known before. A new role in her church’s Fall Production makes her a leader. But that all gets destroyed when an attack by her father’s enemy turns her into the center of attention. Bella believes things couldn’t get worse, but they do. Can she survive the road of destruction and emerge stronger? Or has all that she gained been destroyed forever?  

Destroyed is a young adult psychological thriller that I feel should be put under the contemporary fiction category instead. I'm a huge fan of thrillers, with that genre being one of my favorites. I was intrigued when I read that this was a psychological thriller and had some expectations because of that. In my opinion, this book falls more into the category of realistic or contemporary fiction. Don't get me wrong - it's a good book. I just think that the reader should be aware of what they'll actually be reading before they open the cover. I was expecting suspense, twists and turns, and other aspects that thrillers are known for. However, I didn't get any of these inside this book. I don't want to focus my review on the genre labeling, but I feel it's important to know these few things as they impact my review of the book.
As I mentioned above, this is a good book with interesting characters and a quick pace. Bella, the main character of the story, makes a good heroine - although her character and the story itself felt a bit cliched. She's smart, shy, kind, and a 'good girl.' Her character undergoes some growth in the book - she goes from being timid and weak to being strong and more confident by the time the book is over. The obstacles that she faces during the book force her to look inside herself and discover what she's really made of, which is a great example for the reader. She's realistic and pretty easy to identify with, which made the story flow easier for me. The book itself is written in the third person point of view - my least favorite style. I think that writing this way makes the whole story - including the characters - feel distant. You're fully aware that you're reading a story. I'm unable to completely lose myself inside the author's world when a book is written in third person, which makes it very hard to feel like you know the characters and the experience is simply not as intimate. When a book pulls me in from the very beginning and I feel as if I'm right there alongside the characters - that's when I know I'm reading a very well written novel. Most of these are done in first person POV. Some readers might not care about the point of view the book is written from as much as I do, but for me it makes a large impact.
The plot was solid and well written, but I just couldn't get into it fully. I really think it's because I was expecting something completely different - and I was a little confused when the whole thriller part of the story just never really happened. Sure, there were some tense and even suspenseful moments in the book - but not enough to label it a thriller. I know I keep repeating myself, but everything circles back on the fact that I was expecting one thing and got something else entirely. If the novel had been labeled as contemporary fiction - then my review would be totally different, because the various aspects of the book are well done and I didn't have much problem with anything (except for the part I mentioned about feeling the story and characters were a bit cliched). Other readers are sure to have completely different experiences than I did with this novel. These are obviously just my personal observations and opinions. I do recommend it for fans of realistic and contemporary fiction that has a little suspense thrown in. 

At the age of 16, Krys Fenner fell in love with Psychology and Creative Writing. At that time she wrote her first short story dealing with sexual abuse and forgiveness. Psychological issues in her family filled her with the desire to help others using her own experiences. So in 2004, she earned an Associate of Arts in Psychology. And while her sister is the one with dreams of becoming a Psychologist, Krys Fenner returned to Creative Writing. She is currently working on a Bachelor of Arts and plans to continue on to a Masters degree, where she can major in her first love (Creative Writing) and minor in her second (Psychology).

Author Links:
http://krysfenner.co/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7524938.Krys_Fenner
https://www.facebook.com/KrysFenner
https://twitter.com/KrysFenner

Destroyed is on sale through 5/15/15 and a portion of the proceeds is be donated to Women's Center of Jacksonville!

Buy Links:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Tour Wide Giveaway (Open to US/CAN only!):
(3) Grand Prizes: Each includes books from other authors, signed copy of Destroyed + swag.
(5) paperback copies and (5) e-books
(5) T-shirts


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