So first of all, I think Karina Halle is amazing and her Experiment in Terror series is without a doubt one of my favorite series EVER so I was suprised myself when I struggled with this book.The struggle though was more on a personal level, than directly related to a bad story line or characters.Ellie is a strong character and really does make the story move along at the right pace, with enough spunk I found myself think "you go girl!" more than once. But somehow I couldn't understand her if I'm honest. So her parents used her to cheat others out of money - they try this shit with some drug overlord and Ellie gets scarred for life - literally. Instead of using this as a wake-up call, she decides to go back and try it all by herself... I didn't get that. Why not take the chance to change? I trie telling myself that this was all she knew so it wasn't easy to quit on this kind of life but still,I couldn't connect to that decision. But then again, compred to her life, mine is an endless rainbow with ponies and candy - or something like that. Anyway, why return to her uncle, who seems to be the only decent one in her family at 26? At I get that everyone goes through changes but Camden recognized her with different hair and all and she didn't recognize the guy she considered her best friend maybe 7 years ago? Yeah he got tattoos and muscled up but that's it! How could she not remember the face?As for Camden, I never knew if he was supposed to be the good guy who simply got caught up with the wrong people or he was supposed to be the bad boy himself. He's a little contradictory - he's this badass tattooed guy who plays guitar and looks like Adonis with his muscles and sheer masculinity but then he's the poor guy who fell in love with the wrong girl fom the wrong family. He's a victim but at the same time, wields a gun, cuffes the girl he slept with and thinks about killing her and later on sleeping with her only to humiliate her. I really couldn't connect to it. Again the story itself was good, and I did enjoy it. But for me personally, I couldn't connect to the characters at all and this made it hard for me to be as involved as I would have liked to be in this book. 4.5 Holy hell this book was even better. Ellie is on the run from Javier, she's been away for years, she's heading back to California to become Ellie again. She runs into an old high school friend Camden McQueen. He remembers her, the was a strange one back in high school, now he's hot and owns a tatoo parlor. Oh Ellie tries to con Camden, but he one ups her big time. Before she cons him, they share a beautiful intimatei night. When the gig is up for Ellie, Camden wants her to make him disappear. The turns of events that happens in this book, I thought I was watching James Bond and Die Hard all in one. Holy hell. Guess what, Javier comes back for Ellie. My heart break towards the end. I can't wait to dive into Shoot Scars.
