Review: Invincible by Amy Reed

Invincible

Author: Amy Reed
Series: Invincible #1
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Genre: YA Contemporary
Format: ebook
Release Date: April 28, 2015
Source: egalley received from publisher via Edelweiss
Rating: 3 Stars
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***I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way changed my opinion of the book. The review below is my open and honest opinion.***

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Evie is living on borrowed time. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer several months ago and told that by now she’d be dead. Evie is grateful for every extra day she gets, but she knows that soon this disease will kill her. Until, miraculously, she may have a second chance to live.

All Evie had wanted was her life back, but now that she has it, she feels like there’s no place for her in it—at least, not for the girl she is now. Her friends and her parents still see her as Cancer Girl, and her boyfriend’s constant, doting attention is suddenly nothing short of suffocating.

Then Evie meets Marcus. She knows that he’s trouble, but she can’t help falling for him. Being near him makes her feel truly, fully alive. It’s better than a drug. His kiss makes her feel invincible—but she may be at the beginning of the biggest free fall of her life.

My Review:

This book was not at all what I expected it to be. I guess I expected your typical sad cancer book, but this book was about what happens after the cancer is gone. What happens when you’ve been given a second chance? When despite all the odds, you get your life back? Does everything pick up where it left off? Probably not. I can’t imagine being in a situation like Evie is in. I think that people immediately think that you would be grateful. That you would live the best life you can because you’ve been given that second chance. But life isn’t so easy to put back together. Not after you’ve stopped living it for so long, when you’ve already said goodbye, when you know there’s no chance of recovery.

I loved that this book examined the other side of things. The dark side. Yes, Evie’s been given a chance, but she struggles with feeling like she deserves it. She doesn’t think it’s fair that other kids with cancer have to die while she gets to live. Why them? She’s not a good person. The other kids were much better in her eyes, much more deserving of life. So why did she get to live? Evie grows angry, starts acting out. She gets into trouble with pills and alcohol. She stops caring about school, her friends, her boyfriend, her life. And the people around her get angrier and angrier. They are furious that she is throwing her life away. They don’t understand why she isn’t more grateful, why she’s wasting this precious miracle she’s been given. The pressure Evie must have felt had to be intense and I appreciated that the author showed this side of things.

That being said, Evie is pretty unlikeable throughout most of this book. She’s cruel. She doesn’t give a shit about her family or her friends. Evie is self-centered and out of control. She thinks only about herself and doesn’t care about how her actions affect others. She blows off old friends from the hospital, abandoning them in a time when they need her. She drinks too much, takes too many pills and is all-around a terrible person. She’s very self-loathing and is constantly tearing herself down. And that makes this book very hard to read. As much as I appreciated this book showing this dark side of a cancer survivor, it also made the book hard to like.

And then there was the ending. I didn’t realize this book was a series and honestly, I really don’t think that it needed to be. The ending was abrupt and literally cut off in the middle of a sentence. I’m using literally in a literal sense here. There was a sentence and then it just

See what I did there? So I wasn’t pleased with the ending. I also wasn’t really thrilled about the romance. Marcus was flat to me. He didn’t have much personality although I did see certain things that screamed potential to me. But he wasn’t very developed and he fell in love with Evie way too fast. I did like that he recognized that she had issues and I’m interested to see where the relationship is going to go in the next book. Speaking of the next book, I will definitely be reading it even though I’m mad there even is a second book. I want to know what’s going to happen to Evie, if she’s going to recover and if she is going to be okay. An interesting story of a cancer survivor and her fight with herself to survive her new life.

Have you read this one yet? What did you think?