Reluctant Guardian by Melissa J. Cunningham
Clean Teen Publishing © 2013
Kindle Edition
Urban Fiction
Reviewed by Leah
***SPOILERS AND SWEARING BE HERE***
When I first read the prologue, I thought I was going to love this book. For one brief moment, I thought this book was going to show everyone what it felt like to be suicidal. To explore exactly how much you didn't want to feel anything anymore, while at the same time harboring the inability to feel anything at all. That prologue gave me hope … which the rest of the book stole from me.
Summary:
Alisa Callahan is a sixteen-year-old girl who has survived a horrific childhood, only to be left alone. Despite having a family that loves her, nothing can compare to the lives that were already lost. With her grandmother gone and her best friend and fellow victim having died recently, she feels that she has nothing else to live for. The pain caused by her past is as fresh and painful as if it happened yesterday. Left without a comforting voice to guide her, Alisa decides it isn't worth it to live anymore.
She takes her own life.
An action that comes with a price.
The only way to atone for this sin is to help someone in a way that she couldn't help herself. Assigned to Brecken Shaefer as a Guardian, Alisa naively believes that a few days will earn her an after-lifetime of peace and happiness with her grandmother and best friend in a place she cannot go. That is until she actually meets Brecken.
Born with gifts of his own and a life that isn't all that great, Brecken wants nothing to do with another Guardian. Least of all the smart-mouthed, irritating, goody-two-shoes Alisa. He doesn't want anymore lectures or interference on how he does things. The way he sees it, he's taking care of his family and anyone else who thinks differently can bite him.
Yet, despite their initial reactions to one another, the two are drawn together. The relationship that forms causes far more complications than either of them anticipated. There are consequences for every action, and they're about to figure that out the hard way.
Initial Reaction:
This is the kind of book that pisses off everyone who is/has ever been suicidal. The feeling of hopelessness and disgust with yourself and everyone around you completely vanishes after the prologue. This is not a book about a girl who committed suicide. It is a love story about some stupid dead girl and an even stupider 'bad boy with a heart of gold.' I regret ever picking up this book.
Characters:
Alisa is a spoiled, arrogant, ignorant little twat. I would try to tone this down for a review, normally, but I can't. This girl is the very definition of a naive moron.
Let me fill you in on depression a little bit, and thus what Alisa should probably be feeling at some fucking point throughout this story: you hate everything. Yet, you loathe nothing like you loathe yourself. Your lack and failure light up behind your eyes like neon signs and you're forced to see each mistake you've ever made with glaring clarity every single day. You feel hopeless and useless in ways you didn't think a human being was capable of. You look at the world around you and all of the obstacles standing in your way and you realize that you were never capable of changing a damn thing. Your world is the way it is and you are powerless to do anything about it. There is no hope. Nothing to live for. You're stuck between a rock and a hard place and there's nowhere to go. It is the knowledge that your life is meaningless and nothing you do will have an affect on anyone or anything, so why should you bother? At the same time, you want to be useful. You want to prove you're not a waste of space so desperately that you become a nuisance to your family, friends, and anyone else who cares about you. Yet, you can't make yourself get off that computer, or go out and have fun, or even drag yourself out of bed when no other obligation throws you into a panic attack over what must be done. Depression is knowing that you mean nothing, and the world wouldn't care that you're gone.
Do you think, for one solitary second, that Alisa felt this way at all?
If you said no, you would be correct. This girl is naive and stupid in all the worst of ways. When she commits suicide, she has expectations of what death is going to be. She pretty much demands that she be allowed to float around with her grandma and friend in chapter one. When she learns that she can read minds, she is excited. Death, apparently, has resolved all those years of psychological self-mutilation for her.
Yeah, I'm calling bullshit. Especially when the world she arrives in is more conducive to making her depression stronger rather than weaker. I mean, if you're expecting nothing but relief from all of the fucking pain, and you wind up with assignments and classwork, all within the realm of purgatory … yeah that's going to cure you all right.
Also, the reason for her so-called depression: she was molested as a child. A fact that is literally dropped on us in a passing fashion. No build up. No lingering horror to plague the pretty little ghost. Only one tiny hint in the prologue before we're ten chapters in and are hit with that fact like a brick to the face.
Alisa is a jackass to everyone around her, and especially to her charge. Not that he's anything special … oh wait…
Brecken Shaefer is a special snowflake. In the cosmic, angels hath no fury, kind of way. He has gifts that allow him to hear and sometimes see his Guardians. He's also got a healthy dose of 'I have to do everything myself, which is why I don't take my sisters to my aunt's, even though she could take much better care of them than I can' along with 'must steal to survive, even though I feel guilty about it every single time I break into someone's house.' He was such a worthless character to read about. I felt nothing for him, almost as if he were a cut and paste trope. Actually, having read this months ago, I don't even remember him that well… So we'll be moving on now.
Plot & Setting:
Otherwise known as: ridiculous & non-existent.
I know this was trying to make a new spin on the whole 'life after death' scenario, but damn did it fail. Especially where the suicide came in. If you want to read a decent book with a suicide-city type of portrayal, then read Sanctum by Sarah Fine instead. It has a more realistic view of what depression can do to a person, and a grittier version of what suicide gets you in the afterlife.
The plot according to this book was a love story. That's it. Anything else happening around it was just fodder. Everything that occurred within this novel was for the specific contrivance of having Alisa and Brecken fall in love. Again: ridiculous.
The setting here failed at doing anything. There are brief glimpses of a place Alisa isn't allowed to go to, a half-assed description of the place she's stuck in, a better description of the place she could wind up if she fails, and that's about it. I don't even care enough to attempt remembering it.
Writing Style:
All telling, no showing. Immature characters, especially for the themes touched upon. Inability to decently handle the themes brought into the novel. This author is not for me and I will not be reading any further works.
Overall Opinion:
I regret reading this book. As someone intimately familiar with depression, suicidal thoughts, and the knowledge of what sexual abuse can do to a person, I am pissed off with the portrayals of any of these throughout this novel. Everything was handled with such a cavalier attitude and none of it actually affected the characters who were supposedly consumed by it. So no thanks. Fuck this. I'm done.
*Note to Authors*
If you are going to touch on any of these sensitive subjects, do them justice. They are not a plot device or an excuse for why your character acts the way they do. These are real conditions that do have real life damaging results. Talk to anyone you know, and you will find out, because they are far more common than you think. Then ask them what damage these conditions have done.
Now try and write a stupid love story where these are merely plot points.
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