Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication Date: August 7, 2018
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 320
Source: eARC from Publisher
Find on Goodreads
Goodreads Description
A gripping, surprising, and sexy thriller with a big, pounding heart, Blood Highway takes a seventeen-year-old girl on a brutal journey into adulthood on a road trip that threatens to kill her before she reaches the end.
Rainy Cain, a tough, troubled high school senior, desperately wants to escape the confines of her life in Minneapolis. When her increasingly unstable mother suddenly commits suicide, Rainy thinks she has found her chance. Instead, her father, Sam—who she had always believed died before she was born—escapes from prison and abducts her, taking her on a cross-country trek in pursuit of millions of dollars that he believes her mother had kept from a botched robbery years earlier. On their heels the whole way is a young Minneapolis detective intent on bringing Rainy safely home. It is an odyssey that will test Rainy’s considerable instincts about sanity and madness, and keep readers turning pages till the twisty end.
My Thoughts
ARC provided by Algonquin Books for honest review.
Typically I don't read a lot of thrillers so I never know what to expect when I start one. I was really intrigued after reading the synopsis and was excited to see how the story would play out. Unfortunately, Blood Highway had a bad case of giving away too much of the plot in the description. If so much of the story hadn't been revealed before I even started reading it could've had a stronger impact.
It took me a while to get into this story. The beginning was really confusing and I'm still not completely sure I understood what was going on. We are following 17 year old Rainy as she does her best to deal with the crappy life she's been dealt. It's not clearly stated but it's hinted that her mother might have some type of mental illness. It has gotten so bad it's like Rainey doesn't exist to her mother. She's forced to lie and steal to take care of herself.
I'm not sure if Rainy, or any of the other characters that appeared were meant to be likable. Each were well rounded but they had so many flaws it was hard to feel connected to any of them. I didn't exactly like Rainy but I admired her tenacity, especially when it came to her survival. Throughout the story Rainy made some bad decisions but every step of the way I hoped she would succeed. Also, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about Blaine but I quickly grew to like him. I've never felt so conflicted about a set of character but I was happy Rainy and Blaine were able to be there for each other.
Blood Highway was such a dark, twisted story. It took me a while to wrap my head around some of the things that happened. Some of what happened still makes me feel wrong and violated. There was so much build up throughout the majority of the story and I didn't like the way it ended so suddenly. It left me feeling really unsatisfied with the ending. This was an intriguing and sometimes unsettling story but there was too much that felt missing for me to enjoy it more.
Trigger warnings for abduction, extreme violence, drug use, suicide, child neglect.
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