Be careful what you post online. Your next check-in might lead him right to you…A serial rapist is kidnapping teenage girls. But he’s not interested in just any teenage girls—only virgins. He hunts them by following their status updates and check-ins on social media. Once he’s captured them, they’re locked away in his sound-proof basement until they’re groomed and ready. He throws them away … throws them away like pieces of trash after he’s stolen their innocence. Nobody escapes alive.
Until Ella.
Ella risks it all to escape, setting herself and the other girls free. But only Sarah—the girl whose been captive the longest—gets out with her. The girls are hospitalized and surrounded by FBI agents who will stop at nothing to find the man responsible. Ella and Sarah are the key to their investigation, but Sarah’s hiding something and it isn’t long before Ella discovers her nightmare is far from over.
Fans of The Butterfly Garden and The Girl Before will devour Appetite for Innocence
Warning: Contains sexual violence which may be a trigger for some readers..
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Interesting premise – POV switching between two teenage victims of a kidnapper/rapest. The POV of both girls switches between the past and present.
Sarah Smith was John’s first – first girl he took, the first girl he conditioned for his sick purposes. Problem was due to her horrendous childhood before he took her she gets things mixed up in her head and he becomes her life – her everything. She would do anything for him – including conditioning the new girls he takes and getting rid of them when he is finished.
Ella is/was the latest girl taken. As with every girl that has been kidnapped and put in the celler all she thinks about is how to escape. After a while she sees that she is going to have to endure horrific things to be able to achieve that.
The books start out right after Ella was taken and put in the cellar with Sarah and Paige (another girl who had been taken) giving us both Sarah and Ella’s POV of that. You can see right off that Sarah is not quite right in the head but aren’t sure if she is totally on the side of John or has just learned to accept her fate.
The we jump to present day with Ella in the hospital – she had managed to escape and is being questioned by the police and FBI about the man who kidnapped and raped her. She is understandable in a very fragile state. We soon find out that both she and Sarah escaped and are both in the hospital.
From here we bounce back and forth between past and present until the timeline catches up. The present shows us how the two girls cope with being free and the intense therapy they both start. John is not captured until towards the end of the book so one girl is in fear he will find her again and the other wants him to find her.
These two girls couldn’t be more different. You feel Ella’s pain the most and at first struggle with how to feel about Sarah. Her past is slowly revealed and its an even uglier one than what she went through with John. But in the back of your mind you know she had a psychotic break at some point and may be irredeemable.
Even though the POV is from the girls and the subject matter is very dark. This was a decent read that I found through BookBub daily deal of the day…
Appetite For Innocence is utterly compelling, heatbreakingly tragic, and frighteningly real. A page turner that I found unable to put down, despite the brutal graphic subject matter (I. E. Rape &captivity). Although graphic, the novel is very tastefully yet also, realistically written and has characters you root for. Thoroughly entertaining and thrilling, you will find youself racing to the end to see how this one turns out! Although this is my first title by Lucinda Berry, it 100% will not be my last! she is definitely an author to follow.
Very well written good story plot
This was truly a twisted tale! I never saw anything coming and it always kept me guessing! Highly recommended!
I enjoyed the premise but too many unlikable characters. It did keep me interested until the end but the end was disappointing.
my kind of book… dark.. twisted… page turner
It was a bit slow going, but I didn’t expect the way it ended.
Wasn’t my cup of tea.
Couldnt.put down! Wonderfulcharacters
It was different with a predictable outcome.
I enjoyed reading this book