2/5 stars
Balzer + Bray, 2014
288 pages
YA Contemporary
Scheduled to release February 11
Source: Received an e-ARC through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Well. When I first saw this book, my immediate question was "Who (what) is the lure?" The synopsis answered immediately that it is a beautiful young woman who lures rival gang members so they can be taken down by those in her gang. This sounded horrifically brutal but also uniquely different so I decided to give it a try.
While it seems to be a look at gangs, the lure portion is actually very small in my opinion. Main character Blaise has long prided herself on being tough enough with her attitude and not needing to rely on physical appearance to make her way through the gritty streets. But maybe halfway through the book, after her brutal initiation into a gang (the other girls beat her for a minute), she accepts the offer and her date with destiny is set.
This book was so far out of my comfort zone, beyond anything I could imagine. I mean, is this real life for some people? It blows my mind. How did Ewing conceive of such a setting-has she a journalist background or did she grow up such surroundings? Furthermore Goodreads lists this as a "gritty, sexy novel"-I can easily see gritty but who thought sexy was an appropriate adjective? Brutal, disgusting, horrifying are far more apt in my mind.
Because I don't want to be completely negative, I can mention a positive of this book featuring characters very low on the socioeconomic scale. One of the criticisms I've read about YA is a tendency to focus on middle/upper-middle class white kids but that is not the case here. The characters depicted here are poor and caught up in endless cycles of violence, gang affiliation, and retaliation. No one seems able to break free and many don't even feel a longing to do so. It's absolutely heartbreaking.
Overall: I would not recommend this book to anyone I know-if, in general, we share taste in books, steer clear of this one!
Great review sweetie! Thank you for being honest. <3 (I would have rated it a one star, hih.) I downloaded this via Edelweiss SO MANY months ago.. but then I tried to read it, and I could not. Just not my writing style or plot. Sigh. So you are awesome for managing to read it :D
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how I managed to finish this-probably because I've been in a slump and have had trouble motivating myself to read no matter how interesting the book is.
DeleteI've been curious about this one. I don't know about Lynne Ewing's background, but most of her books do focus on gang members. (Her popular Daughters of the Moon series sort of crossed her normal sensibility with paranormal romance and was awesomely weird and fun, although a bit too early to really cash in on the YA craze.)
ReplyDeleteSo it seems like that might be a bit of a theme for her...I may want to check out this earlier series to see if it suits me more.
DeleteSorry you didn't enjoy this one. The synopsis just didn't call to me, but I was sent one unsolicited and been wavvering on reading.
ReplyDeleteI requested it while in a frenzy of requesting-I should have considered it more carefully.
DeleteIt's a shame this didn't work, because we agree with you that it's important to see these kinds of characters featured in books too. Wonder if a different writing style or plot could have made it more engaging...
ReplyDeleteI loved the idea behind this book and I hope to check out more titles not looking at white middle/upper class people.
DeleteI like that this portrays the life of characters that are not middle or upper class. But other than that, I don't think this would work for me. I am curious about those questions you said you'd wondered about with the author. I'd like to know how real this might be.
ReplyDeleteI'm certainly not recommending it-I am curious to see some positive reviews of this and how it fits with the author's other work.
DeleteI don't really wan to read this kind of book. I mean, I do like that diverse types of people were featured, but The Lure just doesn't seem to be very appealing to me, because of what I've heard about the writing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review!
-P.E. @ The Sirenic Codex
I'd certainly skip it and look for something more your taste.
DeleteWow, I'm reading a lot of polarizing opinions on this one. Which will only make me want to read it for sure. I just have to know.
ReplyDeleteI would love to know what you think of it especially if you end up loving it!
DeleteI have this on my Kindle! (But I'm behind on ARCs and haven't read it yet, oops!) I think I was drawn to this after reading...WILD AWAKE, maybe? I was looking for something gritty, and this looked like it was. It's a shame this didn't work for you, but I still want to read it myself. (At some point!) Great review; we'll see if it works for me!
ReplyDeleteOh I thought Wild Awake was much better-the writing for this just did not enthrall me.
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