Ten Below Zero by Whitney Barbetti
(Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)
on August 28, 2014
“In here,” he said, pushing on the skin above my heart, “you’re ten below zero. And you’re closer to death than I am.
My name is Parker. My body is marked with scars from an attack I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I choose to live my life by observation, not through experience. While people are laughing and kissing and connecting, I’m in the corner. Watching them live. I’m indifferent to everything, everyone. The only emotion I feel with any kind of depth is annoyance, and I feel it often.
A text message sent to the wrong number proves to be my undoing.
His name is Everett, but I call him rude. He’s pushy, he’s arrogant, he crowds my personal space, and worst of all: he makes me feel.
He chooses to wear all black, all the time, as if he’s waiting to attend a funeral. Probably because he is.
Everett is dying. And he’s spending his final days living, truly living. In doing so, he’s forcing me to feel, to heal. To come face to face with the demons I suppressed in my memory.
He hurts me, he fulfills me, he completes me. And still, he’s dying.
Alexis says…
After reading the synopsis for Ten Below Zero I have to admit I was intrigued. I also figured that this was going to be a very emotional read. Then I saw the reviews coming in and I was like, “oh crap, how am I going to handle this book?” So, I put my big girl panties on and started it.
Parker has had just a bad life. Being bounced from foster homes during her childhood to an awful and brutal attack when she was 18, she’s just had it bad. Her life has made her put up this wall understandably. She doesn’t talk to anyone, she doesn’t do anything except go to school and work pretty much. This changes when she gets an anonymous text.
Now, I started to think to myself, “Um Parker…this is not a good idea you don’t even know this person. He could be a serial killer or just some other sort of cray cray.” I may have even screamed at the Kindle a bit, but she still decided to meet this mysterious person even with my yelling. The mysterious person ended up being Everett. Everett was totally not what I was expecting but I totally ended up falling for him. He was just blunt; he did not sugar coat things at all. He never lied and always said what he was feeling. Oh my goodness…his backstory also broke my heart a little bit. No, I’m lying it broke it hard-core.
Parker and Everett’s first few interactions were a bit odd and I wondered how they could end up more then just acquaintances. I think it was partially due to Parker and her resistance to allow anyone in. She also was a bit socially inept I though.
“Some of us have scars that aren’t meant to be seen.”
When Everett mentions he is dying and says he wants to go on a road trip I worried that this book was going to be a bit redundant of other books I’ve read in the past. Nope, it wasn’t at all. See, there is a reason to this road trip that I won’t give away. Once Parker and Everett hit the road their chemistry starts to jive and together they just end up making sense. Parker chases away some of the demons that Everett is battling and Everett thaws Parker’s ice-cold exterior down a few degrees.
“This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us.”
I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t cry. This book is sad but it’s not devastating. I knew that there was only 3 ways this book could end. I had 3 theories on how the book was going to end. What I wasn’t expecting was the ending and how it all came together.
“If I lied to you, I’d be breaking the rules. And if I told you the truth, I’d be breaking the rules.”
I read Whitney’s first book, He Found Me and between the two you can tell that she has really honed in on our her craft and has grown as an author. I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book that completely sucks you in and doesn’t let go.
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