Review for Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos

TITLE: Out Of Reach
AUTHOR: Carrie Arcos
PUBLICATION DATE: October 16, 2012
PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse, a division of Simon & Schuster
PAGES: 256 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: PulseIt
RATING: 2 stars

WARNING: This review may contain, foul language, spoilers, general rantiness, and an over use of angry gifs.

I really wanted to like this book. Truly, I did. But it pissed me off and I can’t say that I will be recommending it to anyone. In fact, I have already told several people to steer clear. Let’s do the basics first. Out Of Reach is the story of Rachel’s journey to find her wayward brother. She enlists the help of his bestie, Tyler to assist her and they head out to search in the areas she thinks he might be. A few weeks before, she received an anonymous email stating that her brother was in a lot of trouble and she should come and try to help. Why she thinks she will be able to find her brother by simply looking on street corners in a single day was beyond me, but hey, more fucking power to her misguided hope.

I started off really enjoying this novel. Rachel didn’t seem so bad and I was intrigued by Tyler. There was obvious chemistry between the two though Rachel does her best to deny it. Plus, I was hoping she would find her brother, bond with Tyler over the experience, and things would end more or less happily.

I know, it was a goddamn pipedream, but I try to start every novel from a happy place…..unless I’m reading it because I want to be depressed, but that is a different matter entirely. The further I got into this book, the more irritated I became. The more I read about Rachel, the more my dislike started to creep in. She gives these flashbacks from when they were younger and her and Micah (her brother) were just sssssoooo close. But here is what I don’t get, if you were so bonded and lied to your parents for each other and all this other shit, then why did you wait all goddamn summer to start searching for him?

Micah disappears at the very beginning of summer and you just write it off, knowing his a goddamn drug addict, because your parents assure you he is fine and you don’t think you should waste your time on it?!?!?!

And now you are all of a sudden worried because you got an email? Lady, I just can’t even begin to describe how much this angers me. This bitch ends up being one of the most self-center, egocentric, moronic heroines I have ever read about…and that statement includes Bella fucking Swan. Oh yeah, I went there. Anyway, a whole lot of shit goes down, they ask around drug dealers places and look on the beach and such, then Miss Whiny-pants car gets stolen. Well, geez, you leave a Honda Civic (one of the most stolen cars in the US) parked on the wrong side of town, what the hell did you think was going to happen?

Then there is the ending, which leaves a lot to fucking be desired. Rachel and Tyler end up finding her car and stealing it back, then head home, sans Micah who is still MIA. Then they kinda sorta discuss their feelings and it’s (lightly) implied that they’ll date soon. Rachel writes an email to Micah, which she doesn’t know if he’ll ever get and sends it out into the universe, basically saying that she isn’t going to worry about him anymore, she’s just going to live her life. Cold hearted bitch. You spent ONE DAY searching.

This novel really was just a whole lot of fuck ups. In retrospect, I realize that I guess the author was trying to write a “realistic” portrayal of the impacts drugs have on the lives of family and friends, but she should have picked a heroine who really cared about the drug-addled brother. I was expecting her to search for several days to find her brother and then drag him home or have him tell her to fuck off or SOMETHING. Whether it be dragging his ass back home for rehab or having an epic confrontation that ends in her leaving him to rot on the side of the street, I wanted something to happen. I would call the ending anti-climatic at best.

Despite all the complaints, I did like how much information the author gave us about meth addicts. It did seem like she did her research on that, but that just wasn’t enough. If that was all I wanted, I could have gotten a pamphlet from my local health department. All in all, don’t bother with this unless you want a big letdown. Do I recommend it to anyone at all? I’ll let Cas answer that one for you.