Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves (Around The World Tours)

Published: January 5th 2010 by Simon Pulse
Hardcover, 464 pages
ISBN: 1416986189
ISBN13: 9781416986188

Love can be a dangerous thing....
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.

Review:

Portero, Texas...is a weird-shit town, is where Hanna thinks she'll fit in, is where her mother lived in solitude for the sixteen years of Hanna's life, is where the Mortmaine--a society of "saviors/heroes"--live, is where the inhabitants see death as just another doorway everyone will soon cross. Hearing past stories from Poppa, Hana knows the unsentimental, nutcase her mother is and always was; but like mother like daughter, right? Parking herself in her mother's home kitchen and making grilled cheese sandwiches is how Hanna coaxed her mom out of unconsciousness in the middle night. For the neglect Rosalee--Hanna's mother--has portrayed over the years, Hana is willing to forgive and forget...but finds Rosalee feeling quite the contrary. To prove to an unrelenting, unloving Rosalee that she belongs in Portero and can take care of herself, Hanna sets off to "make friends" and begin hunting creatures in all hours of the night to show how capable of taking care of herself she is. Only with the "help" of a duty-bound, green-wearing Mortmaine named Wyatt, is Hanna able to complete her new goals. When of one of the many disputes between Hanna and Rosalee gets a bit out of a hand--Hanna knocks Rosalee over the head with a lamp, she is a manic depressive after all. Hanna finds that dealing with the grouchy Rosalee may have been easier than dealing with the possessed one.

Through a series of crazy plans and hallucinations, Hanna must find a way to kick the spirit of the most powerful of the Mortmaine out of Rosalee's body. Can she gain her mother's love in the process?

I really thought I'd enjoy Bleeding Violet more than I actually did. I must say that it is entertaining, with Hanna's crazy attitude and deals. In all, however, it seemed as if Reeves tried stringing along a bunch of subplots and calling it a story. I found it lacking a constructive plot and reason for the main characters actions: Why was she so desperate to gain her mothers affections? Why the lack emotion and connection--besides the hallucinations--when it came to Poppa? These were constant questions pestering me throughout the novel. There were parts in the book actually making me wonder what the author's message was. The ending seemed somewhat predictable between Hanna and Rosalee's relationship but it also cut off Wyatt's reason for even being in the story. On that note, what happened to the supportive characters' background? Bleeding Violet was left with a lot to be desired but it does not stop me from recommending this novel to the newcomers of the YA Fantasy genre. Just to get a taste of the beginnings of a new imagination.

Grade: C-

LiLi