I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore – a Review

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Description:
She can be anyone you want her to be.

Vivian was raised with one purpose in life: to exact revenge on behalf of her mother. Manipulative and cruel, Mother has deprived Vivian not only of a childhood, but of an original identity. With an endless arsenal of enticing personalities at her disposal, Vivian is a veritable weapon of deception.

And she can destroy anyone.

When it’s time to strike, she enrolls in a boarding school on the English moors, where she will zero in on her target: sweet and innocent Ben, the son of the man who broke Mother’s heart twenty years ago.

Anyone… except for the woman who created her.

With every secret she uncovers, Vivian comes one step closer to learning who she really is. But the more she learns about herself, the more dangerous this cat and mouse game becomes. Because Mother will stop at nothing to make sure the truth dies with her.

Review:

I Am Her Revenge by Meredith Moore is a YA thriller. I have never read Meridith Moore before, but the book blurb sounded different and interesting for a YA novel.

Vivian is our heroine and not really a very likeable one at that. We learn pretty early on that Vivian has been brainwashed and trained by her mother beginning as a child to enact a revenge that the mother has lived with all her life. Vivian now 17 is on her way to a boarding school in England. Her mission, and she cannot fail, is to win the affection of a young man on campus, who is the target of her mother.

Ben is the golden boy on the campus, and it is his father who dumped Vivian’s mother years before, and literally broke her heart. “Mother” is in fact criminally insane, and will stop at nothing to ensure Vivian does what is expected of her. There were some scenes shown during her childhood that did not sit well with me.

Vivian slowly makes friends with Ben, ignoring him at first. When her mother puts the pressure on, Vivian and Ben become an item, and she uses all that she has been trained to do to win him to do her demands. She is to make him leave school, marry her, and eventually ruin his life. But slowly Vivian realizes that her life as she knew it wasn’t what she thought it was. With a childhood friend (the only one she ever had), seeing how normal teenage friends act, and her feeling sorry for Ben, Vivian will slowly begin to find out the truth about her own life, and her mother.

The final third of the book is very exciting, with a dangerous attempt to escape her mother and save Ben. As we raced to the climax, filled with twists and turns, the excitement is pulse pounding.

Meredith Moore impressed me with her writing, which was very well done. I will say that especially in the first half of the book, Vivian wasn’t really likeable to me, and in fact the whole process was a bit creepy. Once she begins to see another side, she does become better. This is a different type of YA storyline, and it was necessary to show how Vivian was brainwashed. However, that being said, I do like my hero/heroine to not want me to smack them. Lol I Am Her Revenge was a good story, and totally different then what I have read before.

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher