Shame (Ruin, #3) by Rachel Van Dyken

Shame by Rachel Van Dyken
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4 Learn from your mistakes Stars

A LOT happens in Shame. It’s crazy, but in a good way

I loved Ruin, was a bit disappointed with Toxic, but Shame really rounded everything out. I’m very happy I stuck with the series and Shame left me satisfied.

Summary (brief)

Remember Lisa? She’s Gabe’s best friend. Anyhow, Lisa dated a crazy person and he killed himself “because of Lisa”. She’s trying to move forward, but every time she does, it seems like a creepy stalker is bringing up her past.

Tristian is Lisa’s professor. I know.. it’s not really that kind of story. Tristian has intentions towards Lisa, but not all of them are noble.

Review

I don’t even know where to begin. First off, the prologue is a bit confusing, but for once, it’s not truly a true foreshadowing (meaning, it doesn't give everything away). Dyken is known to foreshadow and it drives me bonkers. This one I could handle.

Second, there’s a lot that happens and a lot of twist and turns. I do not want to give any away, but let’s just say some are less obvious than others.

I liked Lisa, even though she’s kind of messed up because of her ex. I also liked the excerpts from her ex’s diary. It really gave me a glimpse of what Lisa was going through when she dated him. I also liked Tristian because he seemed really complex. He also has a lot of issues and I just wanted to unravel it.

Overall, the story and plot was great. The characters were good too. The execution is a bit choppy. I felt like this book was a bowl of soup and everything was thrown into the pot. Tristian being a professor doesn’t really portray the true storyline of a student/teacher relationship. Dyken does touch on it, but come on, it wasn’t necessary.

The stalker is a great element to the book, because it gives me the damsel in distress I crave, however some of the scenes where the stalker is there, makes it a little too obvious for me to who he is and I kind of wanted to be surprised.

Reading more, I felt like the story was starting to jumble a bit and I was kind of rushing to finish. I love the beginning and the overall plot, but I got lost towards the end.

Regardless, Shame was a decent read with plenty that kept me interested.

Series Order
REVIEW | AMAZON
REVIEW | AMAZON
AMAZON