Review: Addicted to You by Alix Wenmouth

Summary
16-year-old Frankie Raven has just moved 250 miles away from her sleepy hometown to Bradford and she’s convinced her life is over. But then she meets two people who set her on an exhilarating new path and change her life forever.

Roxana King lives on Leather Lane and everyone knows what goes on there; well, everyone except Frankie. Roxana is enigmatic, fun and unlike anyone Frankie has ever known. Then there’s Marcus Ford, the gorgeous, brooding older boy who fuels Frankie's daydreams about meeting her very own Heathcliff on the wild Yorkshire Moors. There’s an instant attraction and Frankie falls hard and fast. 

Marcus and Frankie begin a passionate and turbulent affair but their relationship takes a sinister turn when Marcus becomes increasingly controlling and volatile. As Frankie is drawn away from Roxana into a world of darkness and isolation she finds herself impossibly torn between her head and her heart. Will Roxana still be there to save Frankie from herself and from Marcus? Of course, that’s what best friends are for. Isn't it?

This is compelling and hard-hitting young adult fiction. Contains scenes of an explicit nature and is not suitable for younger readers.

Review
Sometimes when you are in love, you don’t realize just how hard you are falling, either for the person you love, or how far you are falling in life. Love can make you do crazy things, stupid things, and change your whole perspective on life, and even on yourself. It can make you do things you thought you would never do. It can break or make you, either into a different person, or bring you into a life that ultimately can end you.

I hadn't read the full summary of this book before going into it, just that it was about a girl who moves and meets new people, while falling in love with a boy that makes things complicated. So I wasn't exactly sure what I was expecting when I read this book, but certainly not this.

Frankie is a girl who is moving to another small town, away from her friends and brother, along with her parents who seem to be dealing with problems of her own. You right away understand that her parents are not happy with each other, or with the changes they have had to make in their life. This leads Frankie right away to connect with Roxana, who deals with a similar situation that makes her not wanting to be home very often.

Through other friends she meets along the way, Frankie meets Marcus, who right away screams to Frankie: “hot”, “bad boy”, and “trouble”. Frankie is even warned by her friends to stay away from Marcus, but she ignores them, and through time, she eventually becomes his girlfriend, and he becomes her addiction.

However, there is soon trouble in paradise, really even before their relationship officially starts. Alix Wenmouth provides great detail on acts that are horrific, but also very real in our society. The characters are people who make mistakes, but step up to their game. I greatly enjoyed this book as the issues addressed would be great for our society to learn from, and make open some eyes as to exactly what we may not be seeing, even if it is right in front of us.

Reviewed by Mercedes Olivas

Book Information
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 
Publication date: June 16, 2013
Paperback: 420 pages