Made For You
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!
Eva Tilling wakes up in the hospital to discover an attempt has been made on her life. But who in her sleepy town could have hit her with their car? And why? Before she can consider the question, she finds that she's awoken with a strange new skill: the ability to foresee people's deaths when they touch her.
While she is recovering from the hit-and-run, Nate, an old friend, reappears, and the two must traverse their rocky past as they figure out how to use Eva's power to keep her friends - and themselves – alive. But the killer is obsessed and will stop at nothing to get to Eva…
So, GoodReads synopsis instead of my own because there is no way in hell I can do my own synopsis without rambling on and giving something away that I shouldn't, and that would be disastrous with this book! The second thing I need to do in this review, is thank the publisher profusely for sending me this! It's been on my TBR list for AGES, and it was SUCH a good book and I'm just like....I could hug the publishers right now. Like seriously. Hug them to death.
This book draws you in and is very compellingly written right from the start, I was glued to the book the entire time and read it in mere hours, it was too intriguing to put down, I had to know what happened next, and I had to know who the killer was and who was going to die next, and I was trying to juggle eating dinner while reading, which was interesting.
The book has you on the edge of your seat the entire time, and the tension oozes off of the page and engulfs you as you read. The setting was vivid and sucks you in, you can get a feel for the place and the customs as you read, and it was quite fascinating to me to be honest.
Every single one of the characters was intriguing and interesting and well written with plenty of depth. A lot of them you where wondering about, wondering about their background and past, and it was revealed seamlessly with the narrative, and the characters kept you as interested in the story as the plot. I loved Eva, I thought she was such a strong character, and Grace just made me laugh, she really doesn't care! I liked Nate as well, and the thing with he and Eva was cute, and developed quite naturally, with very natural obstacles rather than drama for the sake of drama.
Eva doesn't remember anything about her accident, so you're in the dark along with her, at times, at least for me, pieces fell in to place for me at the same time as they did for her. At other times, while Eva is still in the dark, we get little clues from the worlds creepiest and ickiest point of view ever. Seriously, it made my skin crawl.
We have Eva's point of view mostly, and a few chapters from Grace's point of view, which always fit in at the right moment to further the story, and to add to it, and just made sense. Each change was seamless and you could tell it was a different character by the writing without having to be told it was a different point of view.
Then we had the third point of view. It was so, SO creepy. It was the killer's point of view and it was so well done, and so fantastically horrifying. Like I said, it made my skin crawl and I shuddered more than once. The killer's point of view is always timed well, it always fits in at the right moment, and it was very well done because it added to the story without giving too much away. It gave you little clues, and helped you to understand what was going on, you where in the killer's head, learning his motivation and why he was doing it, but it gave nothing away about who the killer was until after the reveal. THEN it was even more of an "oh shit" moment. So, so well done. It really added to the story because it helped you try to workout who it was, and instead of being all like "wtf why is he after her though? Why is he doing that? What?" the entire way through, you understand why and it makes the entire story even creepier.
The plot was very well done, there's lots of different threads, lots of different information revealed to you at different times that makes you change your mind about your own suspect and it kept you guessing. I had an inkling of who it was early on, not long after we first met the character I thought it was him, for no particular reason than a semi educated guess with what little we had to go on, and I thought he was creepy anyway. But that was okay, it didn't make the book any less shocking or surprising and didn't stop the book from keeping me guessing.
Why? Because the author knows what she's doing, and she writes so that you keep having your mind changed. Little things, little comments, little notes about characters, how surprisingly strong one is, for example, little things like that kept making me change my mind, so I thought "shit no...it's not X character, it's Y character" and then I'd change my mind again, and again, and then the big reveal happened and I was still shocked and surprised because I'd had my mind changed so many times, this character was still my main suspect, but I wasn't entirely sure, and I was like omg it really was. It took nothing away from the book, it made it even more intriguing to me to be honest because I had to know who it was, amid all of these changing opinions.
Made For You is a book that has you on the edge of your seat, and infects you with it's tension, you can't help but be engrossed in it and the compelling writing. Made For You is honestly like an episode of Criminal Minds, you have information about the killer from the killer's point of view that the other characters don't have, and you're trying to work it out along with them. Unlike Criminal Minds, this has a cool edge to it with the visions Eva has, and I thought it was a nice touch to keep the book unique and add a fresh twist to it to make it different. It wasn't overdone, it was interesting to see her trying to work out how it worked while eliminating future victims, and it slotted in perfectly. Thinking about it, it didn't seem all that out there while I was reading, I wasn't thinking "ooh supernatural" I was thinking, "man this is better than Criminal Minds". Truth.
This has been a surprisingly less rambling review than usual and I'm quite proud haha! But yes, for fans of Criminal Minds, this is perfect, with a nice twist, and the same I'll say for crime fans. I kinda want more of Eva to be honest!
