Review : Bleeding Violet

Posted by on June 22, 2010 2:00 am in 4 stars reads | 7 comments

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
Pages : 454
Genre : YA, Paranormal
Stand Alone
My Rating :

From the Back of the Book :

Hanna simply wants to be loved. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna’s tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas in search of a new home.

But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she’s far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe.

Bleeding Violet is, without a doubt, one of the weirdest books I have read. It’s different from the numerous paranormal and urban fantasy novels I have read so far, in a good way. Strange, gory at times and uncomfortable at others, I really enjoyed discovering Reeves’ bizarre imagination.

As the main character, Hanna is extremely different from the insecure, clumsy bookish girls we often meet these days in YA fiction. Instead, she has a whole lot of other issues that would probably make her a dangerous character in any “normal” setting. Lucky (!) for her, Portero is anything but normal and she’s almost one of the less strange characters in her new town. In fact, everything is strange in Portero, and discovering everything through Hanna’s eyes is a weird experience. Any sane person would probably have ran away after five minutes in her new school, but because she’s so different, Hanna doesn’t see things the same way. I loved her and was completely fascinated by her story! She also had a strength that I really admired.

I’ll say that though it was a fascinating read, it wasn’t a comfortable one. The gory, horrific scenes were disgusting and scary, and some scenes with sexual events really surprised me – especially in a YA novel. Therefore, I would say that Bleeding Violet is probably aiming towards an older crowd or readers, more “adult” than “young”.

I did some research and discovered that though Reeves isn’t planning a sequel, she is currently working on Slice of Cherry, a novel that will also take place in Portero and planned for 2011. I’m looking forward to discovering more of this author’s crazy imagination!

7 Comments

  1. Definitely one of the weirdest I’ve ever read too!

  2. Sounds very different than your normal YA books…not sure if it’s one that calls to me or not. Enjoyed your take on it.

  3. First of all, I absolutely love the cover.

    Secondly, I absolutely love the way you’ve described this book. Obviously YA fiction has a lot of ‘insecure, introverted’ characters that awkward teens can relate to but I rarely see a book that features someone who has a better sense of identity – whether they’re weird or not. Am definitely putting this on my wishlist. Right now. 🙂

  4. I hadn’t considered reading this before now. I love the idea of a different lead girl. I like YA particularly when it’s geared for a little older of an audience. I think I can handle the gore… I guess we’ll find out 🙂

  5. Sounds very original!

  6. Lenore : Yes, it’s really different!

    Staci : Thanks! Yes, it’s very different, and I have seen both very positive and very negative reviews of it.

    Ceri : Beautiful cover, isn’t it? That was almost enough to convince me of reading the book at first hehe! I’ll be really curious of hearing your thoughts on this one.

    Tara : Let me know what you think of it!

    Jamie : It really is! Different from everything I have read in the genre recently.

  7. Well this definitely sound like an interesting read. I love finding characters that are really different from any other character I’ve read about before.

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