Book Review: Damaged by Amy Reed

Damaged by Amy Reed

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Genre: Contemporary and Young Adult

Release Date: October 14, 2014

Pages: 384 (Hardcover)

When Kinsey’s best friend Camille dies in a car accident while she was behind the wheel, she shuts down completely, deciding that numbness is far better than mourning. She wants to be left alone during the last few weeks of high school, but Camille’s mysterious boyfriend Hunter, who was also in the car that night, has a different idea.

Despite all of Kinsey’s efforts, she can’t shake Camille, who begins haunting her in dreams. Sleep deprived and on the verge of losing it, she agrees to run away with Hunter to San Francisco. As the pair tries to escape both the ghost of Camille and their own deep fears, Kinsey questions how real her perception of her friendship with Camille was, and whether her former friend’s ghost is actually now haunting her. Hunter, meanwhile, falls into a spiral of alcoholism, anger, and self-loathing.

Ultimately, Kinsey and Hunter must come to terms with what they’ve lost and accept that they can’t outrun pain.

First of all, I would like to thank the publisher, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for giving me an ARC of this book to review. Thank you so much! Really appreciate it! All right, now for my review.

Ghost stories are pretty cool. They usually have nightmares, suspense, and lots of emotion. I’ve never been one to read them since they aren’t that well done (or so I’m told). It seems that Damaged is no different. Really, I wanted to like this one more than I actually did because I’ve enjoyed novels by Reed in the past.

There’s so much info-dumping and since most of it is during the beginning, I couldn’t make sense of it all. With talks of random events and stuff, I just felt left in the dark. Moreover, the story is pretty typical with the broken girl and boy trying to fix each other. The romance felt forced at best. They have nothing in common except they both cared about Camille. Another thing that could have been better it Kinsley’s mom who could have been by far, my favourite character , she’s sassy and strange and gives the story flavour. Sadly, she’s not developed and feels like a half written page.

Still, the people they meet on their way to San Francisco are all unique especially Terry, who I found adorable. Camille is a well put together character, maybe the best developed despite the fact that she’s already dead before the story even begins. Also, I liked how Kinsley opened up at the end albeit a cliché used in almost every type of book, I still enjoyed it.

All in all, not the best book by Reed. The writing is great which helped make the boring characters bearable. Still, I recommend this to anyone looking for something that deals with ghosts and letting go.

2 Boring Clouds