Precious and Fragile Things
By Megan Hart
Published by MIRA
Released December 21, 2010
My Summary:
Gilly thought it was just one more errand, one last things to do before going home. She didn't know that a trip to the ATM would put her world in a tailspin. When Todd gets into her car brandishing a knife Gilly's life turns upside down.
Tucked away in a hunting cabin with her captor, Gilly struggles emotionally, second guessing the decisions that brought her here. As time passes Gilly and Todd are held captive by the snow on the ground. For three months they develop a tenuous connection, but Gilly's ultimate goal is to get home to her children, and Todd's is to stay out of jail.
Todd has a dark past, and as the months drag on he confides in Gilly and her world shifts. Can she peacefully co-exist with her captor without betraying the family that she so desperately wants to get back to?
My Thoughts:
I remember adding this to my TBR list when it first came out and Megan Hart was posting all over her blog and social media sites that this was not a romance novel. I've always loved her writing style and I was excited to try out something a little different.
This was a different kind of book, and I really enjoyed it.
In the early pages of the book we meet Gilly, frazzled and annoyed, trying to placate her children into letting her get through just one more errand before they go home. Her inner dialogue while dealing with her two whining children in understandable and relateable.
She is constantly questioning herself as a mother. She feels guilty for ever having wanted time to herself, she feels bad because there is a small part of her that is relieved that the crying voices of her children aren't a constant background noise for the first days of her captivity. It seems to me that she is holding herself to an unreachable standard as a mother. I can't imagine that a mother of two young children wouldn't get exhausted and frazzled at times.
We learn more about Gilly during her time in the cabin. We learn about her alcoholic mother, the father that abandoned her, and her driving desire to be a good mother.
Todd, for all his maniacal actions in the beginning starts to appear fragile and childlike. He doesn't seem to actually want to hurt Gilly, he just can't bring himself to release her either. It's as though he is still a kid and she is his new friend that he doesn't want to release. Plenty of times I would be frustrated thinking, why won't he just let her go? Of course anytime this was brought up in the book it seemed to send Todd into a panic.
There are some tense moments in the book, and plenty of times when you think that they might actually become friends. It's during those moments that Gilly reminds them both how she came to be there. Todd desperately tries to convince Gilly to just stay with him, to be content to never go home.
This is a gripping story. I got caught up in the characters's lives, constantly wondering how this was going to play out.. It reminds us that we are all capable of things we didn't know we could do, be them good or bad. Megan Hart builds a dynamic, and fragile relationship between Gilly and Todd. All the way up to the end I was trying to figure out how she was going to resolve this to my personal satisfaction.
I struggle with books that are great through-out and then have less-than-desired endings. I was pleased though, that the ending she wrote left no sour taste in my mouth. Throughout the book the situation that unfolds becomes an impossible situation, with no clear-cut resolutions. I was satisfied with the ending.
I really enjoyed it. I give it 4 out of 5 cups.
