
Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves
pages: 454
released: January 2010
publisher: Simon Pulse
cover love: ♥♥♥
Hanna simply wants to be loved. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna’s tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she’s far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe. (From Goodreads)
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 4/14/2011 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET
Review:
“This ain’t Wonderland, this is Portero.
I know blood when I see it.”
I don’t know where to start with this book. I guess I’ll start by saying I loved it.
And it was weird. Very weird. But in a good way.
Dia Reeves has done something spectacular, she has created an amazingly gruesome atmosphere called Portero, because to just call it a small town wouldn’t do it justice. This place is off the map. Trust me, if a toilet bowl filled with rainbow colored water could chase you down the street it would happen there. I have never read a book this kooky. What I loved most about Bleeding Violet and why it earns a gold star in YA fiction is because it is so diverse. And I mean that on the contemporary side and the paranormal side. Because this book blends in both genres. The people in Portero, despite clothing themselves from head to toe in black, are quite colorful. Of course, my favorite being Hanna, the main character. A half black, half white manic depressive, who talks to wooden swans and hallucinates her dead father. I felt close to Hanna mostly because she’s bi-racial like me and obviously because her purple obsession. Her boyfriend is a Mortmaine, a protector of the town who can liquefy and has magical cards that always help save the day from the monsters lurking all over the place. Let’s not leave out dolls that come to life, hidden doors to portal you around and forget-me-not pills that make you remember your dead loved ones. There are so many insane noodles in this book I can’t describe them all, you’re just going to have to read this book yourself and go loopy. There’s just so much going on.
Two strong points of this book are the character relationships and the originality. Reeves takes her time and focuses on the right keys to build the relationships Hanna has with her mother, Rosalee, who is relentless at making Hanna feel she’s not welcome or wanted by her or the crazy town she lives in. But Hanna is stronger than Rosalee can imagine. Hanna is able to prove many times over that Portero is the perfect place for a nutcase like her and she’s the perfect nutcase for a bitch like Rosalee to love. Hanna’s relationship with her boyfriend, Wyatt is also dysfunctional but that’s what made it so believable. Both have serious trust issues but they find ways to look passed that because their need for each other is what’s really important. And how can this story not get kudos for being original? Have you read this book? I could read it again and probably find creepy things I missed the first time around.
I seriously couldn’t put this book down, every page was filled with action, blood, humor, and purple. If you’re looking for a trippy murderous escape, go get this.
Favorite Lines
“Even if you were Hannibal Lecter himself, around here you’re nothing special.”
“I’d rather be miserable and free than happy and caged.”
“The red color infesting Wyatt’s lure spread like licks of flame until the entire stretch of rattling glass was full of bloody-colored pinwheels throbbing like sick, misshapen hearts.”
“It disturbed me that he saw things in such black and white tones. I sure didn’t. For me, the world was a confusion of colors.”
5