Surviving Raine (Surviving Raine, #1) in Buddy Read Zone

May 21, 2013 M. rated it it was amazing

I’d lived through a lot of shit. I’d survived abandonment, betrayal, endless violence, and the elements, but could I survive Raine?

Wow, this was a very nice surprise. Something about this book caught my attention when I saw it on Goodreads a while back and I knew I had to read it as soon as possible. Which was yesterday. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop reading it. It was so good. Even when I stopped I found myself thinking about it. Something about this book just grabbed me, bu

I’d lived through a lot of shit. I’d survived abandonment, betrayal, endless violence, and the elements, but could I survive Raine?

Wow, this was a very nice surprise. Something about this book caught my attention when I saw it on Goodreads a while back and I knew I had to read it as soon as possible. Which was yesterday. Once I started, I didn’t want to stop reading it. It was so good. Even when I stopped I found myself thinking about it. Something about this book just grabbed me, but I can’t point a finger on what.

First of all, I loved that it was all in Bastian’s point of view. When a male point of view is done well, it’s a million times better than a female point of view. And this author freaking nailed Bastian’s pov. He really sounded like a guy and this is something I stopped expecting from male povs. I loved being in his head and knowing what he thought. He was such a man. He cracked me up several times, even when it wasn’t supposed to be funny. It kind of reminded me of Drew from Tangled. Needless to say, I am in love with Bastian. Just love him.

Second, I loved the originality and the diversity of the story. It had a little bit of everything and it was unlike anything else I had read. The characters were both likable and had a lot more going for them than I initially thought. The writing flowed smoothly and I really felt like I was part of the story. As if I was there with them experiencing it all.

So let’s get to the story now. Bastian is the alcoholic asshole that calls himself captain of his ship and pays women to fuck him so he can avoid intimacy. Raine is a passenger on his ship. When the ship goes down in the middle of a storm, this highly unlikely pair ends up together on an emergency raft. Bastian is not a people’s person at all, so he wasn’t all too happy about having a second person there with him. She was annoying, asked a lot of questions, put up with his assholeish ways, ate half the food and drank half the water that could’ve been all his and at the same time she was fucking hot. This made Bastian quite moody and he wasn’t a fun person to be around in the first place.

Toss her overboard or stick my tongue down her throat? I couldn’t decide and it fucking ticked me off.

Raine puts up with his crap, but at the same time doesn’t. Somehow Bastian gets used to having her around as much as he can and he starts feeling protective over her.

For once, it wasn’t just me I needed to look after. There was the annoying, questioning, tiny little piece of seriously feminine, soft, brown-eyed, doesn’t-take-my-shit, fucking beautiful young woman who didn’t stand a chance on her own that I needed to protect.

I still didn’t know if I wanted to kill her or fuck her.

Faced with death and fear, Bastian and Raine start talking to each other. We soon find out there is a lot more to Bastian than just the shell that’s acting like a dickhead. Slowly but surely Bastian starts baring his soul to her.

I could feel every bit of her soul within my own. It had never occurred to me before that I might have a soul.

When there is nowhere to go, you are forced to deal with your demons whether you like it or not. When things got too tough, too hard, too awkward, too uncomfortable or too painful, Bastian had nowhere to go. They were seriously stuck together. They could fight and argue as much as they wanted to, but they were forced to talk everything out that same day because there was nowhere they could run to. This is how Bastian got forced to deal with his past and his issues. In any other setting, he would never have opened up the way he did. In any other setting, Raine wouldn’t be able to make him feel again like she did.

She kept pushing even when I was being a royal asshole. She pulled things out of me I never wanted to talk about. She gave me her warmth and her touch, and she took care of me when I was hurt. She gave me her love. On top of that, she showed me how to love her, too. She was accepting what I was and who I was even when I was being a moody little bastard, and she loved me anyway. She was teaching me to care about life again when a month ago I had been pretty convinced my future consisted of nothing but drinking myself to death.

Bastian was kind of like a lost puppy, all alone in the world, until he found Raine. She was his destination, his anchor and his destiny. It was like him and Raine were meant to end up on that raft together. Everything that had happened in their lives before had led up to that. Bastian’s past gets revealed little by little and seriously, it’s such a heartbreaking story. With everything he’s been through, I am surprised he is mentally still functioning. His story gave such emotional depth to this book. His strength, his will to survive and to pull through was amazing. He has come a long way, but he still has a long way to go. In this book I experienced all his hopes and fears, struggles and victories, pain and joy, love and hate. I can’t wait to see what the second book will bring and I can only hope it will be as good as the first was.

As long as I’m breathing, I’m yours.

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Jun 02, 2013 Raquel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, contemporary-romance, favorite-couples, hard-to-put-down

Loved this! Review to come.

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May 31, 2013 Marlene rated it it was amazing

A REAL " NON-STOPPER" BECAUSE I JUST COULDN'T PUT THIS BOOK DOWN UNTIL I REACHED THE VERY LAST PAGE. AWESOME... INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL, RAINE.... WHAT AN INCREDIBLE STRENGTH IN SUCH A TINY BODY....DEMONSTRATING THAT LOVE REALLY REALLY CONQUERS ALL.... EVERYTHING!! AND SEBASTIAN.... IN SPITE OF ALL HIS DEMONS HE HAD CONSTANTLY TO BATTLE, HE RECEIVED AND CORRESPONDED BY GIVING A LOVE SO PURE AND SO AWESOME THAT JUST LEFT ONE BREATHLESS...... A VERY WONDERFUL INTENSE STORY BEAUTIFULLY NARRATED BY THE ...more

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