REVIEW. In the Stillness by Andrea Randall

Holy shit.. Andrea Randall can write!

"Sheryl Crow is so full of shit. The first cut most certainly is not the deepest."

In The Stillness isn't pretty. It's dark, gritty, emotional, horrifying, but hopeful. Andrea doesn't hold back with In The Stillness, she puts everything out there and it's up to you to suck it up and roll with it. I did and I don't regret a single second. The opening scene is of Natalie cutting.. shocking way to start a book yes, but did it work? Totally. I was pretty much hooked from then on and didn't stop reading until I'd finished.

In The Stillness was different in the sense that there were two guys/heroes to speak of. We have Eric who is currently Natalie's husband and Ryker, who we later meet, who is an ex boyfriend of Natalie's. I won't say too much about Eric because to be honest, he was an asshole. I had bad vibes from him to start with but I didn't know why. I just knew I didn't like him and wanted Natalie to rid herself of him.

And then we meet Ryker.. ♥
I have to mention first, this book is written in the present tense but when Natalie is thinking about stuff we shift back to the past, experiencing it as it happens. The transition between the past and present was flawless, I never once got confused and I knew where we were at all times.
Back to Ryker.. as I said, in present tense he was an ex of Natalie's who we knew very little about, as we went back in the past we learnt about him bit by bit and I fell in love. Hard. Cutting a long story short (I want you to experience it for youselves) Ryker is sent off to Afghanistan, yep, he's in the army. Shit happens over there. Real, awful, heartbreaking shit and when he comes home from war he's a different person. Completely. 10 years later him and Natalie are strangers to each other.. no contact whatsoever in as many years.

"He wasn't just my 'college boyfriend'. He was the absolute love of my life."

Personally, I think Natalie was an incredible character. As I've said, the book starts off with her cutting. At this point we don't know why but I was intrigued and I wanted to know why. What causes a grown, married woman, with children, to do that? At first I wasn't a huge fan of hers. The way she spoke of her life, especially her struggles with being a mother, were really hard to stomach. "They look adopted. Can you return adopted children?" Just one example of her talking about her kids. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt and the more I learned about her and her life, the more I understood her and appreciated her honesty.

Natalie completely, 100% transformed throughout this. The whole book was her story. A story of trying to cope with the guilt she feels over ruining the life of an ex boyfriend, struggling through a broken marriage, being a parent to children she never wanted and the pain of all that causing her to self harm. The Natalie in the beginning of the book and the Natalie at the end were so worlds apart from each other that you could barely believe they are the same person, but it is believable, because Andrea has done such an amazing job of making it so.

"I keep cutting. For him. For me. For ruining lives. Apparently, I'm good at that."

The ending of this book was ah-may-zing. There was nothing cute of fluffy about it but let's face it, that would not have done this book any justice at all. Instead, it was just so incredibly real. Natalie wasn't riding off in to the sunset with the love of her life, rainbows and bunnies in tow, instead she was getting through life a day at a time. But most importantly? She was happy. And I was ecstatic. I was full on crying happy tears for about the last 10% and honestly, that's the best way to end such a good book.

 

*ARC provided by author in turn for an honest review*