Bleeding Violet

Bleeding Violet

by Dia Reeves

Hanna is bipolar and biracial: two things that have always caused people to look at her strangely.  However, when Hanna runs away to Portero, Texas to be with the mother she's never known, Hanna finally gets to see what "strange" really means.

Portero is a small town filled with hidden doors to other dimensions.  And sometimes the creatures from those dimensions come through.  Now Hanna must contend with a mother who does not want her, a guy who doesn't want to have to watch over her, and creatures that just want to destroy her.

Being insane is now the least of her worries.

Final thoughts: (and there are many)  I've read a number of reviews complimenting this book and, if you judge it by the cover, it could be really great.  The author has created an entire new mythos here with new creatures mixed with known and a background for the town that could be very interesting.  

Unfortunately, she's not very good at making it great.  The writing is poor.  I'm suspecting that the author was trying to write from Hanna's point of view of being a little insane, but it came out just being a mess.  There were many times when things happened that made no sense, no matter how many times I re-read the passage.  I strongly believe that the ONLY reason that Reeves created Hanna as a person with bipolar disorder was as a contrivance in order to make the reader understand why Hanna would step into the middle of this crazy town and then stay there.  If she's insane, wouldn't all the insanity around her seem normal?  

Also, most of these people aren't doing anything to help themselves.  Why would anyone stay in a town where a person could be walking with friends one minute and slip through a hidden dimensional door the next without ever being able to return.  I understand why the green shirts stay, because they can manage the monsters.  But why anyone else stays is never explained.  As a parent, if I were there, I would grab my child and move as far from that town as possible to avoid him being hurt.  Yet these people not only stay, but let their kids run around even with thousands of Missing Person posters littering the streets on light poles and walls.

And lastly, there is an element of violence and gore that is not to be believed here.  This is NOT a book for children or even young teens.  At one point, the mother murders a teenage boy while her daughter watches and giggles.  Later, the daughter wakes up naked in her bed next to the now heartless and armless boy, covered in blood, and the most she seems to feel is a little cranky, as her mother smiles about the "joke".

This is a book to MISS.  Avoid.  Stay away from.

Rating: 0/5 - it's not worth anything more than glancing at the pretty cover.