She’s been six different people in six different places: Madeline in Ohio, Isabelle in Missouri, Olivia in Kentucky . . . But now that she’s been transplanted to rural Louisiana, she has decided that this fake identity will be her last. Witness Protection has taken nearly everything from her. But for now, they’ve given her a new name, Megan Rose Jones, and a horrible hair color. For the past eight months, Meg has begged her father to answer one question: What on earth did he do – or see – that landed them in this god-awful mess? Meg has just about had it with all the Suits’ rules — and her dad’s silence. If he won’t help, it’s time she got some answers for herself. But Meg isn’t counting on Ethan Landry, an adorable Louisiana farm boy who’s too smart for his own good. He knows Meg is hiding something big. And it just might get both of them killed. As they embark on a perilous journey to free her family once and for all, Meg discovers that there’s only one rule that really matters — survival.
When the novel opens, we met "Meg" in the middle of another transition to a new identity. For the last two (and a half, I think) years, Meg and her family have bounced from place to place on the run from someone or something that she has no idea who. Her once social and entertaining mother has become a alcoholic, her parents marriage is on the rocks, her little sister (affectionately nicknamed Tiny by family only) has stopped speaking and even reverted a bit in her child development.
In the beginning, she only thought it was temporary. She made friends, she joined teams, she even dated. But the end result remained the same. The suits (aka the WITSEC-Witness Protection agents) would always show up and relocate them. "Meg" has no idea what's happening. All she knows is, it's getting worse. During this new placement, she and her sister's long blonde hair has been cut and dyed brown and she's been forced to wear brown eye contacts as they relocate to Louisiana.
Understandably tired (emotionally cites the psychology side of me), "Meg" decides that she won't make friends or try to kindle anything with any guys during this placement. It's only going to result in a move anyway, right? Instead, her goal is to find out what her dad did to land them in the program. But it's hard. Her parents don't talk to each other and her father has terrible interactions with his daughters, although "Meg" doesn't help at all.
But of course, this being YA, "Meg" is going to find a guy who is determined to figure her out and get her to change her mind.
The moment that "Meg's" love interest was introduced, I was immediately creeped out. His name is Ethan Landry...you know, like the Ethan Landry who (highlight for spoiler) killed Sutton Mercer and dated her twin as she hunted for her sister's killer! Creepy! Anyways, Ethan is a downright Louisana-ian with a accent and boots to match. I spot his use in the novel the second "Meg" was checking him out in the office. Pretty soon after they meet, Ethan realizes that "Meg" knows nothing about the area (I think it was Oklahoma as her fake pre-move setting) she supposedly came from. Then he realizes that she isn't telling the truth and semi-understandably is intrigued to tries to question her and catch her in lies. Since we were following the story through "Meg's" point of view, I felt frustrated and annoyed by him for her. Did he not realize what he could do to her world? (Of course not, but I know more then he does, so I wanted him to stop).
But because guys think the word "no" is a challenge, Ethan keeps after her. In public, he covers for her litle blunders. In private, he still tries to catch her in a lie or reveal herself. "Meg" tries to stay away from him but when she gets a job at a local pizzeria, she doesn't realize that his aunt is the one who owns it. Because no one wants her sister to be home alone with her drunkard mother and her dad doesn't get off work til 7, Tiny comes to wor with "Meg." Ethan uses this time to do what her family couldn't in the past few months, he manages to bring out old-Tiny in a few days with her.
He even manages to hear "Meg" slip up when she calls her Tiny instead of her fake name "Mary." Using her little sister for information pays off. Halfway. Tiny slips up and mentions Naples, Florida, one of the places their family lived at during a placement where "Meg" was "Avery Preston." Using this city name, Ethan just so-magically stumbles across the article that got the "Preston's" booted from the Sunshine State. Before "Meg" made her no-friends, no-boys rule, she joined a dance team at one of her placement schools where she was mentioned and photographed in a article.
Smh, amateur.
Actually, not entirely.
"You can tell me anything. You should know that," Ethan says.
What, Ethan? What?
But "Meg" has her shit together.
"How would I know that? I've been here for what...two weeks?" I spin around to face him. "And why so nosy about me?"
For real. Does he not get how weird and creepy he is? How many times does she have to tell him off about that?
"What gives you the right to say this shit to me? Why do you care where I'm from? Why is anything I do or say any of your business?" (You go, girl! Times two!)
Anyways, "Meg" hurries up and lies. She tells Ethan that she is Avery Preston and that her dad got into some trouble and she had to move. That's it. He doesn't get anything else.
I will say that "Meg" impressed me. Some YA girls with secrets feel the urge to reveal their secrets to persistent boys far too soon for the relationship to have convinced me. "Meg" didn't feel the urge for a while and even then she fought it until he forced her hand. But more about that later.
During this persistent chase of "Meg" she tries to chase down information. Her dad won't tell her squat and her mom just tells her to ask her dad. (Isn't that backwards?)
But her dad won't tell her crap. So "Meg" has to resort to listening to her dad's phone calls and trying to write everything out in her cryptically kept journal. "Meg's" managed to keep the journal hidden from the suits during the moves and although she writes about her life and her repeated nightmares, she keeps it just vague enough. But then one night while she's doing laundry, someone steals her journal and she is heartbroken. (I predicted this during reading, but I thought it was going to be Ethan's cheerleading twin and her minions who don't like "Meg").
Ethan eventually gets to a point where he won't let "Meg" make her own decisions and when she seems wary about going on a date with him, he tells her when he's showing up to pick up even though she hadn't said yes yet. At another placement, "Meg" had a boyfriend named Tyler. One night he was supposed to pick her up so they could go to a Halloween party together, but she gets ripped from her placement. The feds don't even let her call him to tell him not to wait, so it's kind of haunted "Meg" ever since that she doesn't know how long he waited for her, before he realized she wasn't coming and he had been stood up.
By this point it doesn't matter. Ethan and "Meg" are dating/talking but not yet official. They skip class together, she goes over his house, they attend parties together. Basically, everything she said she wanted to do, she ends up doing the opposite of.
One day "Meg" tries to skip school and look up answers on a coffee house computer, but a suit named Agent Thomas shows up and stops her. "Meg" thinks Agent T is actually a decent human being compared to the rest of the suits. He actually interacts with her and her family. The first time she talks to him it's because she finds a card in her mother's stuff and calls him. He makes an effort to reach out and help "Meg" but she's unwilling to accept it at the moment.
And that's not the only thing haunting her. "Meg's" been haunted by nightmares for a while now. And after one of her nightmares/flashbacks to the night she left her first life, it finally hits me. 78 pages into my 228 page e-book I figured it out.
It isn't her father who did or saw something, it's her.
There's a reason "Meg" can only remember bits and pieces from that night. She heard one of her best friends sneaking around with her longtime crush and her other best friend talking shit about her. Angry, she goes to a party with some lower class-men and gets drunk. And that's the most of what she can remember.
But that's not all that happened.
"Meg" realizes this while on a triple date with Ethan and his dad, his twin and her on-again-off-again boyfriend and his dad, Will and Catherine. Ethan decides to take her on a hog chasing shot out and the blood that hits her and what-not makes the rising memories completely rise to the surface.\
Ethan takes her home and she has a confrontation with her drunk mother. During which, her mother tells her the only reason any of this has happened is because of her, not her father. She wasn't supposed to be there, but she was.
See, what happened was: after getting drunk, "Meg" went over her crush, Brandon's house whose dad is also her dad's business partner. There, she sees his dad hide some ledgers before a man breaks into the house, threatens him and kills him. Brandon happens to walk into the room (she's hiding so no one knows she's there) and gets shot and killed. This is the death that traumatizes her. The killer happens to find her hiding space and to keep him from killing her, she tells him she knows where the ledgers are. Before she can tell him though, the cops show up and he disappears. It turns out he works for the Mexican drug cartel and her crushes dad had been handling their books for a while. The feds got on his tail and he was planning to give them up until the cartel found out and put a hit on his head. "Meg" wasn't supposed to be there. But she was and she saw it all.
She tells her dad that she remembers everything and they kind of mourn together. She learns that the suits wanted to put her in counseling to make her remember but he refused because he didn't want to do that to her. The two of them try to figure out all of their options. But there really isn't that many options. So she tries to have a top secret meeting with Agent T who isn't old or dumb. He quickly asks if a boy has anything to do with her change of heart but she denies it. (But it does. It so does.)
Finally, she comes up with a plan. She'll just go back home, find the ledgers, give them to the Bad Guy and everyone will be safe! She runs away but Ethan is a persistent little guy and sees what she's doing and follows her. She tries to keep him out of the know but he threatens to throw her out of the car. So she tells him everything. Together, they have a road trip which includes bloody confessions and steam filled make out scenes (to the narrator anyway). The climax was kind of boring. "Meg" uses her old two-faced friends to get to Brandon's house and get the ledger. But after she finds it, Agent T shows up and takes it from her.
Then (predictable) twist number two: Agent T is evil! He isn't a suit at all, he's been watching "Meg" under the feds noses because he works for the Mexican cartel and very nicely left "Meg" alive and took off with the ledger. With the guy hunting her dead and the ledgers done, "Meg" and her family get to come out of hiding. Her house gets a upgrade, her mom goes to rehab and she and Ethan finally DTR (define the relationship).
At the end, Meg-who-is-really-Anna, mysteriously finds her journal in her pocket. Along with a note and a daisy. The note reveals that the trackers were smart and clever trick (but not smart or clever enough) and that they thought she should have her journal back. Then, the note vaguely mentions, maybe I'll see you again. Which freaks Anna out to the core. She just got her life back. This isn't over after all.
However, the twist is the "T" who signed the note isn't Fake-Agent Thomas...but you'll have to read the book (or my review of the next book) to find out who it is... (That's when it's revealed to the reader; I've already started reading it).
you should do chapter summary's for this book!
ReplyDeleteso basically Agent T was evil they needed some ledgers and he took them and they all went back to their normal lives then its the next book?
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