Touching Melody by RaShelle Workman
Publisher: All Night Reads
Source: Netgalley
ISBN: 9780985318864
Release Date: May 14, 2013
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Maddie Martin's first weekend at college is nothing like she's used to. It's wild, like the wilderness on which the University of Bellam Springs sits. Roped into going to a fraternity party, she literally runs into Kyle Hadley. The boy she's loved since she was nine. The boy she promised all of her firsts to. But that was before his father killed her parents.
Determined to stay away from him, she throws herself into her music. Practicing piano eases her heavy heart, calms the sadness, and pushes away images of Kyle's face.
Until it doesn't.
Her music professor asks her to play a duet for their annual Winter Gala. Doing so means she'll be assured another full ride scholarship. It's an opportunity she can't pass up.
But Kyle is the other half of the duet. And that means hours and hours of practicing.
Weeks of seclusion - just the two of them. And it's more than just music. It's passion like Maddie never believed was possible.
The inevitable happens. She falls in love with him all over again.
But, will loving him be enough to erase all the hate in her heart for his father? Can she look at him, and not see the evil in his family tree?
And maybe it's all a set up. Maybe Kyle is only pretending to care so he can finish what his father started, and kill her too.
I finished this book fairly quickly, but unfortunately not because it was so amazing that I couldn't put it down. I just wanted to finish it and move on. The plot, characters, nothing worked for me. I found the writing to be clunky at times. It didn't read smoothly. It would just jump from one thought to the next, which jumbled everything together.
Melody Martin is still coming to terms with her parents murder. She witnessed her best friend's father leave the scene of the crime when she was eleven and quickly puts it together that he killed her parents. Shortly after she is taken in by her Aunt and Uncle, who don't have modern technology (other than one TV) and are stuck in the 70s.
Melody was just not relatable. Finding your parents murdered in a pool of blood at the age of eleven is traumatizing, but she just didn't seem very smart. Why would she move back to the town where her parents were murdered and start a relationship with the killer's son? A lot of her actions were very questionable in this book. Melody seemed overly naive and innocent. She acted more like she was locked away for the past seven years, then someone who was home schooled.
Kyle Hadley, Melody's best friend growing up is first introduced while being propositioned for a menage a trois. From the start he seemed like a jerk and just not a very nice guy. My impression of him didn't really improve as the book continues.
The book did touch on a lot of hard topics alcohol and drug use, rape, violence, etc., but didn't really flesh them out. For example, Melody's roommate, Gina, is raised in foster care and after their first "wild" college party Gina comes home dishevelled and upset. It is obvious something has happened to her, but Melody wants to ask her about what happened, but doesn't want to upset her. She finds out later that Gina was raped and it wasn't the first time. Gina thinks there isn't a point in reported what happened because she likes to party, so it must be her fault. After they talk about it Gina seems to be psychologically recovered within a few days and Melody drops the subject.
My biggest problem with this book was how Melody saw the male characters. After she is wakes up in Kyle's house she thinks he must be such a great guy because he didn't take advantage of her when she was passed out. That doesn't make him a nice guy, it means he's not a rapist. Just because you are passed out doesn't give a guy the right to take advantage of you. When Evan attacks her in an alley, she just thinks oh what a jerk he must be. Her naivety on certain matters seemed quite twisted at times.
I have read a fair amount of the New Adult genre and unfortunately this just wasn't one of the better ones.
