THE TASTE OF BLUE LIGHT by Lydia Ruffles

These are the things Lux knows: 

She is an artist. 

She is lucky. 

She is broken. 

These are the things she doesn't know: 

What happened over the summer. 

Why she ended up in hospital. 

Why her memories are etched in red. 

'Desperate to uncover the truth, Lux's time is running out. If she cannot piece together the events of the summer and regain control of her fractured mind, she will be taken away from everything and everyone she holds dear. If her dreams don't swallow her first. 

This book sounded interesting and the cover's lovely, so of course I was interested in checking it out.

Lux attends an exclusive art school and leads a life of drinking and partying with her fellow classmates. But she can't remember what happened after a party she attended while doing an internship at a gallery during the summer. 

She gets constant headaches, panics, has nightmares, fights with her parents, and desperately tries to find her way back...

Okay. 

This book was... really hard to get through. 

It started out well enough, because Lux was so lost and struggling to piece her life back together after knowing something awful happened. But she wasn't very nice, and even though she's obviously vulnerable and going through so much trauma, I never warmed to her. She was too manipulative and mean, judgemental, entitled and downright mean.

I never found myself feeling sympathetic towards her. Not even once. :/

So I started skimming, skipping ahead. The more I read, the less I cared. By the time I found out what really happened to her, I was so disappointed I wanted to put the book down right then. I mean, really? Where were the hints? The foreshadowing? I love a good and unexpected twist, but this is not how it's done.

After the big--disappointing--reveal, the book keeps going on and on and on. Yet, I pushed forward, hoping something would save this story for me. Something to tie everything together in a way that actually made sense. But nope. 

At least getting to The End meant I was done.

The Taste of Blue Light turned out to be a book with an interesting premise and a lot of promise, but my enthusiasm fizzled out early on. The main character's attitude and actions kept me at a distance from the beginning and instead of drawing me deeper into her struggle, pushed me away. Sure, the writing's nice but if the characters didn't grab me, the story lost me and the reveal was lacking, what does lyrical prose matter?

So disappointed. Oh well.

The Taste of Blue Light, September 2017, ISBN 9781444936766, Hodder Children's Books