There are secrets buried inside of me.

From scars I don’t remember getting to memories that creep at the edges of my mind, I know there are answers just out of my reach.

I’m missing something. Something important.

I thought the Sinners had my back, but am I right about that? Or are they just playing me again?

Among the privileged elite of Hawthorne University, not knowing who to trust can be deadly. Because with every scrap of my memory that comes back, I become more and more sure of three things:

Someone at this school wants me gone.
Someone at this school hates me.
Someone at this school is afraid of me.

And you know what?

They should be afraid.

Okay, second book done, and I’m hesitant to use the word clusterfuck, but that was the overwhelming feeling that I had while reading this book. I mentioned in my last review that I had a few theories about what direction the plot would go in. I hit the nail on the head with one, but was woefully ignorant of all the others. Then the ending, well, definitely gave off King’s of Chaos cliffhanger vibes.

Sophie starts off the book on the rocky backstep, and Grey starts off the book standing in his own corner with no friends. Maybe it is all the why-choose books I’ve read recently, but as much as I adore best friend Max, a part of me is constantly looking for betrayal from her. It doesn’t diminish her character as I read, but I guess I am more paranoid about the role of best friend characters at the moment.

This book allowed the exploration of intimate moments with Sophie and each of the Sinners. Sophie and Declan are like melted chocolate, attuned to each other in a way that speaks volumes with a single glance. Sophie and Ellis are like teddy bears off to their next picnic spot. Sophie and Grey are fire and ice, and somehow, they make things work.

Sophie is followed by more trouble in this book. I was foolish to believe we’d seen the last of Cliff in book 1 because he is back with a vengeance here, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the subtle comparison to him and Draco Malfoy – ‘my father will hear about this.’

Cliff is a toerag, but a clear representation of bad parenting with money. Can you fault a character for living up to the expectations of a father born from the same cloth? His dad seemed to be an aloof, arrogant shit, who no doubt took to parenting like a prisoner trying to escape high security.

The university is corrupt, from the lowest employee down to the man in charge. Money talks; that is universal, and it is what sets this book apart from others of a similar genre that I have read. Ashwood doesn’t shy away from the actuality of how people with money can behave and what the consequences of nepobabies can be. Cliff is, unfortunately, a product of his environment – a chip off the old block. I don’t believe we have seen the last of him or his father.

Grey goes through a lot of changes and challenges in this book. He was already an unstable character battling grief and an angry violence that he couldn’t seem to snuff out. In this book, he has everything, loses everything, and then crawls back to everything again. It is a lot for a character to go through, but it is also very realistic in life. We all have moments where a wrong move, action, or thought upturns the world we live in negatively. A way that we cannot change time for. Granted, his is one of the more extreme book narrations, but the message still stands. Grey made a choice; it was the wrong choice, but he believed he was making it for the right reasons. He just didn’t understand the vast array of consequences that would arise from it.

Eventually, Sophie, Declan, Ellis, and Grey become a solid unit, but the foundations aren’t cemented, and I believe there is space for the group to be rocked. However, their road to a unit is hard fought in this book; there are many conflicting emotions, thoughts, and opinions that have to be worked out between the four of them to get to the point they are at the end of the book. There is a lot more character development to be had for them.

Now, the cliffhanger. Unexpected. It wasn’t even one of my theories, and knowing Ashwood’s writing as I do, I almost feel disappointed in myself for not seeing it. I should have learned from my years of reading to never underestimate a character, but I find myself constantly doing just that.

I’m not sure what this cliffhanger holds for the next book because not only was it shocking for me to read, but it came without the necessary context of information that would explain why it had happened. I know, I know, I will probably get the answers in book 3, doesn’t mean I have to like not knowing the consequences now!