Made For You by Melissa Marr

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the importance of the first book you read of the year, so I felt like I needed to pick a really, really good one. So much pressure!

Originally, I pulled out The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult to start last weekend – I got it back in the fall and have had it on my to-read list ever since. But, when I finally did pick it up, I just couldn’t get interested in it. That feeling of forcing yourself to read something when you can’t stay interested is the worst, and that’s exactly what I was going through. So, I put it down, thinking that I would try it again after a few days. Then, fate stepped in.

I was cleaning out my Nook shelves and realized I had Made For You by Melissa Marr that I had totally forgotten about. I’m one of those readers that needs to read the first few pages of a book before I know for sure if I’ll actually like it or not, and oh boy did I love this. It took me less than a chapter and I was already distracted from everything else, and got nothing done for the rest of the day.

Let me tell you, this book is GOOD. Better than good even. It’s for sure one of my new favorites. Right up there with all of the books Gillian Flynn has written actually, and that says something!

Made For You is about a girl named Eva Tilling who lives in a small town in North Carolina. She gets hit by a car on her way home one night, and it completely changes the course of her life as well as those around her. A few days after she is hit, another girl that she goes to school with is killed in a car accident as well. That’s when everyone starts connecting the dots and a pattern begins to form, and the realization hits that her accident? Well, it wasn’t really an accident.

The book is written so well! The entire story goes back and forth between Eva and the attacker’s points of view, and sometimes even adding in a chapter or two from the p.o.v. of Grace, Eva’s best friend. After Eva’s “accident,” she discovers that when people touch her, she has the ability to see their death. She uses that to try and catch her attacker. I loved that aspect, because it’s not something you see in a lot of books (I’ve actually never read a book with this type of story line). Melissa Marr writes absolutely wonderfully. I honestly felt like I was there, in the house with Eva and Grace, I could feel the terror they felt and the emotions they were going through. It was also really interesting the way that Marr wrote the attacker’s chapters, and how you can totally guess who it is but only when she is ready for you to. So amazing.

All in all, I definitely recommend this book. I rated it 5/5 on Goodreads and it’s one I can see myself reading again and again. I’m very happy with my choice for first book of 2015!