Review: Amber Lin’s Giving It Up
I generally only write about books that blow my mind. It’s not that there aren’t plenty of books out there that I love or that there aren’t authors out there who are on my auto buy list. I hesitated to pick up this book because I don’t read a lot of BDSM or erotica but The Romance Man raved about it enough that I figured I’d give it a try.
Wow, was I glad I read this book. It’s the book that comes along, maybe once or twice a year, that really just blows my mind with it’s awesomeness.
And the ones that really stick with me are ones that have some really tortured characters. Amber Lin‘s GIVING IT UP left me with a book hang over. The kind of book hang over that made me start the entire book over again from scratch and reread it the next day.
It’s not a happy go lucky romance. It’s not a BDSM novel, at least not in the normal BDSM stuff (and my knowledge of normal BDSM encompasses all of 3 romance novels, one of which, I’ve been told is pretty vanilla safe). So you’re not going to get butt plugs and chains and whips. But you are going to get a story that will rock your world with some emotional angst, some pretty messed up people and it will make your heart bleed.
Allie is 22. She feels old. See it turns out that Allie has had a pretty shit life and every day, she wonders how she’s going to keep her little girl in diapers and baby chow. Allie also has a small problem and I’m not going to give it away but she’s into self harm. Not cutting. No, something far worse for her well being, something dangerous and well, kind of stupid, actually. But Amber does an AMAZING job of making the reader understand why Allie does what she does. She makes us feel the need for the kind of hurt that Allie uses to release the toxic goo in her soul.
The book is not easy to read. It deals with characters that are not sympathetic. Colin is not a white knight in shining armor. He’s more of a dragon, who stole away the princess. But even then, he’s a sympathetic character.
Amber’s book is not going to be for everyone. It’s an intense, emotional read that will make you look at the lost young girl in the supermarket differently. It will make you question the stereotypes that you judge people with. It’s a powerful, raw, gritty, dirty book.
I loved it.
