Shooting Scars (The Artists Triology Book 2) by Karina Halle
It is Shooting Scars – not stars which I thought for the entire book despite looking at the cover, the side of the book, and the Goodreads updates. Yeah, I don’t even know.
This is a second book in the Sins and Needles series. I will try to do a spoiler free review of it, but you can’t read this one as a standalone unlike On Every Street – which is like 0.5 or something of the series. I always get confused by those little novellas. If you would like a bit more context, please refer to my Sins and Needles review – and please do read the book since this book is definitely worth a read.
This book…
I have a lot of thoughts on this book, but I kind of just want to summarize it with that beginning statement. I’m not sure I can do anything else with it for now, but I’m going to try.
This story picks right up after we last saw these characters; however we get something a little bit different – we get Camden’s point of view, which I mean, I guess was necessary for how Halle structured her plot but I felt super weird now having his point of view when I didn’t have it before. ANYWAY, back to the plot. Ellie’s with Javier who is convinced Ellie should help him take down Trevor and Camden is on the run after a debacle with his ex and their kid. He hooks up with Ellie’s family friend, Gus, and both of them are off to play knights in tarnished armor and save her from Javier. There is a lot of craziness in between – seriously, I think a few of these people might have some psychological issues. It’s twisty, it’s curvy, and a heck of a lot of fun.
This cast of characters is a bunch of morally complicated people, and sometimes, I would get super upset with their decisions (cough, Ellie, cough, cough), proclaiming to hate them, but them suddenly want to root for them all over again (um, paging Ms. Watt?). You can’t ship anyone in this book, because it’s bound to change within a page or two. It’s dark and twisty and oh so bad, but that somehow equates to good.
I will admit that the one crown off probably came from my lack of ability to get into the first part of the book. It took me forever to get into my groove with it, which was the direct
opposite of the three other books I read by her. However, once I found my groove, it was a slippery downhill spiral that had me binge reading about 200 plus pages in half a day. It gets that good.
Overall, this story just got a lot more convoluted and crazy. The characters are morally questionable, but that’s what makes it so good and dark. It’s an insane ride and a very good follow up to Sins and Needles. I can’t wait to see what insanity Karina Halle has planned for us next.
P.s. Make sure you read On Every Street before you read this. It really helps!
Check it out:
Have you read Sins and Needles or Shooting Scars? What did you think? What do you think of morally complicated characters – love or hate them?
Book Princess Reviews 