Unhinged by Nicole Cypher

DNF @ 48%

Heather knows how much I love my psychos, so when she suggested that we buddy-read UNHINGED, I was totally down. The premise is pretty chilling, I will say that. James is a psychopath who kills those he thinks deserve it. Holly is the wife of an abusive husband who has decided to take matters into her own hands. James kidnaps Holly, attempting to slay her as the monster he thinks she is. But then he sees her scars, and decides to keep her instead.

I think the problem is that this book just didn't decide what it wanted to be. Was James an unapologetic psychopath? A Dexter-like psychopath who operates on the principle of chaotic good? Or a damaged antihero who secretly wants to be a good man? The book tries to make him all three, and that turned out to be a recipe for disaster because all three of those archetypes are totally in conflict with each other and really don't mesh all that well.

Holly was slightly more interesting but I really don't think we get enough of a grasp on who she is as a character. Is she a psychopath, too? She's so frightened and incapacitated by her own problems that it doesn't really feel like she is-- but then why is she so quick to adapt to James's killing, torture, and lack of empathy? If she isn't a psychopath, the answer starts to look like stupidity and bad writing. An answer I found myself leaning towards more and more once the sex scenes began and I was kind of like, omg, um, this is so not hot.

I'm sorry to give this a bad rating because I do think it was an interesting premise. The story just didn't hold up to what it promised to deliver, and I didn't really think either character possessed the utter lack of moral compass that they should have considering their actions. I decided not to finish the story and I gave it two stars only because I think I probably would have found it just OK if I decided to push through to the end and finish the blasted thing.

2 out of 5 stars