Sunday 7 February 2016

Book Review - Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J. Bick

Drowning InstinctDrowning Instinct

Author: Ilsa J. Bick

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Mental Illness, Teacher / Student Relationship. 

Published: February 28 2013

Pages: 343 pages (Paperback) (Quercus)

Read: January 17 2016 - January 20 2016

Rating: 5 Stars





Jenna is sweet sixteen, the age when a girl is supposed to find her prince.

Instead she finds Mr Anderson – intelligent, handsome, married Mr Anderson, who just happens to be her chemistry teacher. With a dark past and a difficult family, Jenna is just happy to have someone to protect her, to worry about her, to love her.

But should she be suspicious of Mr Anderson’s reputation for helping ‘damaged’ students? Why is the most popular girl in school suddenly jealous of her? And where is Mr Anderson’s wife?

This is a love story that breaks all the rules, but that won’t stop it breaking your heart.

Book 5/65 - 2016 Goodreads Reading Challenge

I started reading Ilsa J. Bick with her Ashes Trilogy. I fell in love with that trilogy and wanted to explore this author some more, so I went and checked to see what else she had written and came across this book - Drowning Instinct. 

Drowning Instinct is about a young girl, Jenna, who's life has been really rough so far. Jenna has been battling self harm and now has fallen and having an inappropriate relationship with a teacher. I haven't really read a book solely based on a teacher / student relationship (I think it was only in Vampire Academy and House of Night where I'd seen this relationship before) and I was curious. I was curious because of well said Vampire Academy relationship and because of Pretty Little Liars tv series too. I wanted to read a book solely based on a student / teacher relationship and Drowning Instinct wasn't a disappointment.

I felt so much emotion for Jenna. From events in this book you can see how bad her life situations are and I just felt so much pity for her. I felt bad for her. I felt anger for her and I fell in love with Mr Anderson through her eyes. It is easy to see that the fascination she has with her teacher starts almost immediately when she sees him and this infatuation turns into a relationship when dangers both of the participants. 

As Jenna and Mr Anderson's relationship continues and grows a mystery soon appears and boy, did that mystery break my heart! Everything in this book broke my heart! By the end of this book I was sitting in a pool of my own tears. In fact, this book gave me that dreaded book hangover feeling. I was just in pieces. So if you go into this book not thinking it will be absolutely heartbreaking, think again! 

Ilsa J. Bick is just such an amazingly talented author for making you feel so much for a character. She is also very talented at writing mysteries. I had no idea what was going to happen in this book. As I read and once the mystery aspect kicked in, I was writing down different ideas on what the hell was going to happen and well, all my predictions were wrong and I was completely off. I had no notion of what was going to happen an it made this story all the more enjoyable.

So, be prepared! Go into this book with a shielded heart and read this at your own risk. I hope that Ilsa J. Bick will write another novel like this soon because she has an amazing talent at writing about dark, taboo topics such as zombie apocalypses and student / teacher relationships. And well, I shall be on the lookout.  

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