{Review} From Ashes by Molly McAdams

Title: From Ashes
Author: Molly McAdams
Format: e-book
Publisher: Morrow Publishing
Release date: December 11, 2012
Date Read: December 11, 2012 - December 13, 2012
Rating: ✭

When Cassidy Jameson's best friend Tyler took her to Texas with him when he left for college, she was expecting his cousin, their new roommate, to be a Stetson-wearing cowboy since his family owned a ranch; not this incredibly gorgeous guy with a husky Southern drawl that seemed to make the world stop whenever she looked at him. Because of her past, she's only ever trusted two men in her life, Tyler and her dad whom passed away when she was six. But there's something about Gage that draws her to him in a way she can't explain, only problem? He's always telling Tyler that he doesn't want Cassidy living there and sees her as nothing more than his little sister.

Gage Carson was excited his cousin Tyler was coming to live with, and go to college with him. When he'd called to ask if he could bring his friend Cassi with him, Gage didn't care. Gage had heard about this mysterious friend since they were kids and felt like he already knew her. Nothing would prepare him for watching her jump out of Ty's Jeep though. Not only was Cassi the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen, but there was something about her that within seconds of meeting her, made Gage want to protect her, and make her his. Too bad Tyler made it a point to remind Gage on a daily basis that he was dating her and she was completely off limits.

For a year and a half, Gage and Cassidy dance around their feelings for each other as Tyler continues to keep them apart; until one day Tyler unknowingly pushes her right into Gage's arms. With Tyler unable to keep lying to them, they finally start a relationship both have been craving since their first meeting. But when an accident and disaster sends her back to Tyler and California, will Cassidy be able to come face to face with the demons from her past to live a life she and Gage deserve; or will the fact that she once again ran to Tyler be the final push that ends Cassidy and Gage for good?

For FROM ASHES

TAKING CHANCES and Oceana are not friends.

We are not friends at all.

Not because that plot twist completely crushed my heart, or because the main character didn't end up with whom every one wanted. It was because I purely and truly despised that book, and for some crazy, unexplainable reason, I decided to read FROM ASHES. 

In all honesty, I was hoping it would be be much better than its predecessor, so I could write a nice review instead of a incoherent, angry, babbling rant. I didn't expect much, but a girl can dream.

And once in a while, one shall stumble across a book that makes their blood boil and their vision red. It was unfortunate that for me, I found several books like that this year. But both of Ms. McAdam's books were near the top of 2012's fume list.

Synopsis

Cassidy Jameson has been physically, mentally, and emotionally abused by her mother and stepfather since her father's death. It is a secret that she keeps completely under lock and key, but there is one person that knows: her best friend, Tyler, who takes care of her when she is hurt and who has been Cass's crutch for years. 

Tyler takes Cassidy with him to Texas when he attends college, and there she meets his cousin, Gage. It's practically love at first site for these two, but Tyler successfully keeps them apart... for a while, until shit hits the fan and blows the fuck up.

RETURN OF THE RICH BEAUTIFUL WHITE PEOPLE IN COMPLICATED LOVE PENTAGONS

I need my Aspirin, please.

First of all, Cassidy being abused does not belong in this book. It's just a plot device to give Cassidy a problem in life since she has none, a reason to be 'broken', to let Tyler take care of her, and to allow Gage to protect her and eventually end up with her. You could have removed the parts of the book where Cassidy talks about how she's been abused, and it will not have changedin the least. Because in the end, it's not a story about a shattered character who needs some TLC. It's pure love triangle - or actually, a near fucking pentagon - and shoving in a background of abuse in this story is total crap and absolutely out of place. 

Anyway, model-handsome Tyler drags Cassidy to Texas, where she meets his hotter cousin Gage (who even knew it was possible to get sexier than Tyler, right?), who, of course, is completely godly and charming and handsome and angelic and unearthly and oh shut the fuck up.

You thought you knew insta-love? Hahaha, bitch, you're wrong. These two lay eyes on each other and it's a total nuclear explosion. But what attracts them in the first place? How beautiful they both are, of course! You can't have average or even pretty-looking characters in these books. They've all got to be the most stunning white people in the world.



I mean, they look better together than Ian Somerhalder and Nina Dobrev!which is totally not fucking possible

So while Cassi here is having an orgasm looking at Gage, some chick wraps her arm around Gage and Cassidy, who hasn't even, you know, talked to Gage, starts to get annoyed and angry and even thinks about plotting to destroy their relationship.

Says the girl who pages before, claimed that she didn't trust men.

OH MY GODS SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

This is what Gage says on page thirteen, after meeting Cassidy. HE JUST MET HER, OKAY? I don't give two shits if there was 'electricity'. Electricity my ass. 

"... I'd already pictured her beneath me."

He goes on to say how the wind was knocked out of him when he imagined Tyler and Cassi together.

THIS IS CREEPY NO ONE NEEDS SOME RANDOM FUCKER THINKING ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH YOU AND MAKING THEIRS YOURS OKAY STOP IT NOW IT AIN'T SEXY

Tyler manipulates Cassidy and Gage so they can never properly establish a romantic relationship - always ending up with Cassidy or Gage storming off and coming back in several months. However, Tyler blackmails Cassidy into being his girlfriend, or he'll bring her back to her abusive household and she'll loose him. Cassidy accepts.


THIS BITCH NEEDS A SASSY GAY FRIEND.

Who the actual fuck would even want to stay with an asshole who would blackmail and threaten and manipulate you for SEX? 

Later, Tyler nearly forces Cassidy to have sex with him, and when she doesn't, he pulls a Travis and comes home with a promiscuous girl (who just had sex with Gage, because without Cassi he's sexually frustrated) and then KICKS CASSIDY OUT IN THE FUCKING SNOW AND SHE ALMOST FREAKING DIES BEFORE GAGE SAVES HER

(but later they're friends again, don't worry)

Gage beats Tyler up, Cassi and Gage get together, butterflies poop rainbows and puppies fly. This should be the end, right? It's been a long ride, anyway.

NOPE, BECAUSE THESE BOOKS JUST DRAG THIS SHIT OUT. Pages and pages and endless chapters of absolutely nothing happening except Gage and Cassidy fuzzy and sexy time - WAIT I HAVE SPOTTED A DRAMA LLAMA, CASSIDY YOU STUPID BITCH, GET OVER YOURSELF BECAUSE HE HAS SEX WITH OTHER GIRLS TOO, NOT YOUR PURE WHITE VIRGIN ASS -



Finally, Cassidy leaves Texas and goes back home because her house has burned down, killing her stepfather and mother, who left her a suicide note and an 'apology' . She also meets detective Connor Green (he's achingly handsome!), with who she has a 'connection' with.

Connection: in less than two weeks, Cassidy is making out with Connor (wait, I thought she had a boyfriend?) and going on and on about how she lurvs Gage, but Connor just understands her because he's been abused too, and oh, why can't she just have the best of both?



Anyhow, she goes back to Texas, has a lot of sex with Gage in the house that they bought together, and then Connor comes back to confess that he 'needs' Cassidy ("I need you,") but she brushes off the horny son of a bitch and tells him to go home. Then, like the rabbits they are, Gage and Cassi screw in more sexy places. Like on their kitchen island.

Watch out, innocent children! Stay out of that kitchen!

Cassidy and Gage get married less than two months later because marriage is the most important thing in the world to them, and it must be done immediately. Who cares that Cassidy isn't even old enough to legally drink a beer? NO ONE, CAUSE LOVE MEANS MARRIAGE, RIGHT?

Then Cassidy gets stung by a scorpion and I finally was like HELL YES IS THIS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR? 

But, alas, she survives (what else?) and it turns out she's already preggers (saw this coming from a fucking mile away) and then suddenly it's years later, and Cassidy has her baby, and another baby, and she's pregnant with her third child. You find out she and her second baby almost died in delivery - her heart literally stopped and started again.


Hey, I used this guy in my TAKING CHANCES review!

But seriously? She had to almost freaking die? AGAIN? That is such crap!

Characters

Cassidy is like this Chihuahua I know called Fifi. She's tiny, stupid, and constantly shaking in fear for no reason. I have almost literally never encountered a heroine who was just so naive and empty and freaking idiotic. I wanted to grab her by the nonexistent balls and fling her around until the parts of her brain settled into the right places. Being apparently abused is not an excuse to be such a moron, because trust me: Cassidy does not act like an abused person (nor does she think about it), and Echo from PUSHING THE LIMITS was also abused and she is far from retarded.

Here she is, calling all these girls sluts and shit, and meanwhile she's playing three guys before adding a couple more to the mix.

She is also gorgeously perfect, and beautiful, and supposed to be the girl all the guys want (there are over seven guys that wuv her). Supposedly she's delicate, sweet, and soft-spoken, ALL THE GUYS get into a fight over her, and she's constantly being saved from attempted rape or assault because of how hot she is.

The reason for Cassidy not telling anyone that she's being domestically abused is ridiculous. It's not that she's afraid, or her stepfather and mother have convinced her that no one will listen, or that they've just plainly scarred her. She doesn't want them to 'take her away from Tyler'. 



I don't think she realizes that she is about to turn eighteen, and that they're not going to throw her in an asylum for the rest of her life. She's not going to loose shit.

And then, while Tyler shoves her onto a bed and starts kissing her roughly, I'M SO SERIOUS, they're like:

"Tyler, you know I love you!"
"But you don't. Not the way I love you. Romantically."*humps*
"Wh-what? But you only like me as a friend! I don't understand! *shoves his tongue down her throat*
"I want you!"
"Tyler, are you okay? We're just friends, and you know that."
*continues humping her*

You must be completely STUPID to not realize they don't like you as a friend anymore. And, hey, when a guy dumps you, it's way worse than being forced to have a sexual and romantic relationship with someone, right?

"It wasn't like my Tyler at all, and I was surprised by how much it hurt. It wasn't anything like when Gage broke my heart, but it still felt like someone had punched me in the stomach."

She annoyed me to no end, and the fact that not a single person gave a shit when she went around making out with everybody infuriated me. She was so dumb and plain, I just really, really wanted to bang my head against a wall.

Or, er, maybe introduce her to this guy:



But I'll spare you, Cassidy, because being head-desk-inducing doesn't deserve the fate you'll get with this American Psycho.

Gage is such a boring, possessive piece of plank wood. The only thing he was good for was sex and telling everyone that Cassidy was his property. I have nothing to say about him except that he needs to get his dick under control, because he got a boner every chapter or so looking at her. I will never call my friends 'darlings' again, because he completely ruined it for me and I hated his character, who always needed to pick Cassidy up and save her.

"I could claim you as mine."

WE ARE NOT SLAVES YOU ASSHOLE.

Tyler is a blackmailing, threatening, manipulative fuckface and the fact that his blackmail is completely written off and forgiven is despicable and disgusting. There was nothing attractive about all the shit he pulled and I hope he gets hit by a truck and dies.

Connor is boring and blah, and he has no respect for Cassidy, who already has a boyfriend. The other characters were bland and lifeless and bored the shit out of me. Cassidy's stepfather and mother were sickening people and I'm not sorry they both burned to a crisp.

I didn't connect with any of the characters and the development was awful.

Romance and Stuff

Don't even get me started on this bullshit. Gage and Cassidy are one of the fastest insta-love relationships I've ever read, and in between it's eye-rolling angst that I didn't care for.

All the people falling head over heels for Cassidy got really old, really fast. She's always complaining about everyone being in love with her, and it really. pissed. me. off.

"How was it possible to be so completely in love with someone but have this kind of chemistry with someone else at the same time?" 

Go on, Cassidy. Please. Keep on whining while you're making out with Connor. You're suuuuchhhh a likable character, so we don't mind your constant bitching!



Everyone in the story is a beautiful rich white person, and when Cassidy didn't have any money because her mother took it, guess what? SHE GOT DA MONIES FROM THE WEALTHY-ASS FAMILY OF TYLER AND GAGE, because no white people love story can have a lack of money to do the things they want!

There was not one black person in FROM ASHES, or any person that wasn't white, for that matter. 

And getting married in FROM ASHES is a must. It doesn't matter that they're still young and have a full life ahead of them. Marriage is the most important thing, and once that's over with, you can get pregnant and have a bunch of babies, and then you're allowed to live. Cassidy, like Harper, got pregnant before she was twenty-two, because children can't wait.

Writing

The writing in this is terrible. FROM ASHES has several transitions - one page, you'll be in present time, and the next, it's eight months later and you wouldn't even have realized it. There are way too many time changes and it needs to slow down.

On a scale of one to Snuggie, how unnecessary is most of the stuff in FROM ASHES?

More useless than an On/Off machine.

There is also so much useless, needless shit in these books that should've been taken out a long time ago. I thought this was what an editor was for? FROM ASHES should've finished when Cassidy started a steady relationship with Gage instead of dragging us by the hair for another two hundred effing pages of drama, stupid shit, and the epilogue. Leave something to the imagination, gosh! Stop giving your characters a complete future. 

Cassidy getting stung by a scorpion? ARE YOU SERIOUS? This should have been an extra scene edited out! It's not important to the story! 

I don't think McAdams realized how many times Gage's pants started tightening. It was ridiculous. That boy has some problem with his penis. It needs to be checked out. And I'm tired of hearing about Cassidy's whiskey/amber/honey/piss colored eyes. WE GET THE FUCKING POINT. WE KNOW.

And remember my rant about how people's eyes don't automatically 'darken' like a fucking lamp switch? Well, way more eye-darkening here! I'm starting to think they're all closeted vampires.


Damon Salvator, c'mon down, my sexy friend!

The dialogue was so choppy and the writing itself is simple to read, yet amateur and not good at all. Complete pain in the ass.

Wrap-up

I hated this book with a burning, fiery passion. It angered me and I hope that no girl actually admires Cassidy and decides to play all these guys while acting like an empty-headed bitch.

Oceana is a French-blooded teenager who enjoys stalking British boys and asking them to marry her. She was diagnosed with severe fangirl disorder in 2011. Able to curse like a sailor with an angelic voice.