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Made for You

Melissa Marr

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Aug 29, 2014 Pili rated it liked it · review of another edition

I had been really intrigued about this book for quite a while, so when I was approved for an eARC for it via NG, I was quite eager to start reading it!

Eva Tilling is your super popular girl in a small Southern town, where popularity and status comes from who your family is and how long they can claim to have been in the town. Thankfully Eva is not your mean queen bee, but instead we get someone that isn't sure of continue fitting in because it's how things are, or to ignore convention and do wha I had been really intrigued about this book for quite a while, so when I was approved for an eARC for it via NG, I was quite eager to start reading it!

Eva Tilling is your super popular girl in a small Southern town, where popularity and status comes from who your family is and how long they can claim to have been in the town. Thankfully Eva is not your mean queen bee, but instead we get someone that isn't sure of continue fitting in because it's how things are, or to ignore convention and do what she feels right. She has the perfect boyfriend and a group of friends she's known forever and Grace, her non-Jessup-native best friend.

Made For You could feel like your typical and topical contemporary story about privileged teenagers but then we get a few twists, one is the murder mystery that starts with the attempted murder of Eva herself and two is the paranormal element introduced after Eva's accident and her seeing visions if someone touches her.

Those two twist are not the only things that make this feel less topical than usual, I must say that one of the topics I loved seeing twisted & broken were the absent parents that we usually see in YA. Eva's parents are always travelling and busy with their work, so Eva has always been very self reliant, but after her accident/attempted murder, her parents really are shocked into a change of attitude, and I loved how Eva's mum reacted to everything. I love how she decided that she needed to take charge and responsability and that being a mother was something she had been failing at. Not something common seeing an adult admiting fault AND taking steps to fix it, and even less in something as parenting.

We get 3 POVs in this book, Eva, Grace and Judge, the serial killer aka completely-off-his-rocker-guy. Being in the killer's head was utterly creepy and disturbing, but it was incredibly well done. I was always wondering about who Judge would be from Eva's group of friends and although I suspected right, waiting for Eva to connect the dots wasn't as fustrating as it could have been.

I think the bit that worked less well for me were the visions, even if they were clearly key to actually apprehend Judge and to save Grace and Nate. But we really don't get much of an explanation or clue as to why visions are possible, or other clues about paranormal stuff, so it was a bit odd.

As for the romance... I was happy to see Eva and Nate working things out and talking and being upfront with each other and that Eva decided to stop acting the way she is expected to for social convention. And I loved that she was strong and sent her bf packing when she found out about the cheating and that she was adult enough to avoid bitterness and still help him when he desperately needed it.

I really enjoyed the writing and the pacing even if not everything clicked 100% for me, and I was particularly happy to see the way nurses were depiced in this one, so thank you for that Melissa Marr! Definitely I'm gonna check more books written by her. Well deserved 3.5 stars for this one. ...more

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