Hold Me Still by Britaini Armitage - OPTIONAL

Hold Me Still by Britaini Armitage, 290 pages. Britaini Armitage, 2016. $12.

Language: PG (3 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG13

BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE

When Ella was 16, she witnessed the murder of her parents. Now, ten years later, Ella is the CEO of her family’s company, worth billions. But life is not safe for Ella, and the 24/7 security detail makes Ella realize that she has built walls around herself as she built up the company. Can Ella now choose to build a relationship with someone on her payroll?

I felt like nothing was accomplished for most of the book, as if the antagonist forgot about his victims for large periods of time. Also, the main characters seemed inconsistent for the first quarter of the book. Ella and Elliott would contradict themselves in scenes, which made the story a bit confusing. The best part was the end as the antagonist was confronted, but that just led into a cliffhanger ending. With all of that said, I did still have parts of the book that I liked and that made me laugh. It isn’t a bad book, I think it’s just unrefined. The mature content is for mentions of sex, partial nudity, and attempted rape; the violence rating is for murder, death threats, child abuse, descriptions of war violence, and torture. Also of note is that the language has 0 completed f-words, but characters obviously start to say it a few times.

Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen