SICK FUX

I cried a ridiculous amount of times while reading this book and my heart hurt beyond repair sometimes. I absolutely loved this book! The characters were…just wow! The love that existed between Rabbit and Dolly was incomparable to anything else I’ve read in awhile.

Tick Tock Tick Tock…It’s time for tea and only Earl Grey will do. Wow! This twisted romance had me from the very first chapter. The adventures of Rabbit and Dolly are filled with thrills, chills and romance is a beautifully morbid way that I couldn’t get enough of. Through struggles and horrible events grows a woman that takes back what was taken from her, granted it’s in a new way but the fact that she stands up and fights makes me cheer her along side her very best friend. This story will swallow you whole and you’ll never want to put it down. You NEED to click your copy now.

***5 ‘I Wasn’t Asking….I Was Insisting’ Stars***

Tillie Cole said it was going to be dark. Darker than anything she wrote before.
Hell, even her husband said it was fucked up (shared via her SM)

And it was that and so much more and…

I ADORED every word of it and NEED more.

Yes, I was disturbed, and even sickened by certain things that happened, I mean I love me some dark and deviant as much as the next person, but these certain things pushed even me to that very fine line. But the dark light in the vast darkness of this journey were Heathan and Ellis aka Rabbit and Dolly, They were unique, utterly addicting and absolutely fascinating in every way imaginable. Dolly’s spirit and Rabbit’s intensity, albeit dark, were what drew me in and all it took was one moment to fall into adoration with both of them. Their journey is a dark, painful and chaotic, and yet there is humor, heart and moments of sweetness that shows that they are each other’s perfect match in every way.

Sick Fux goes beyond dark waaaayyy beyond, and I love me some dark themes, so if you are gonna dive into this one, be prepared because as always Ms. Cole goes balls to the wall and is absolutely unapologetic about it. But outside of the dark, I thought it was absolutely brilliant how she took Alice in Wonderland, twisted it up and made it her own. It added that surreal feel to an already unique journey that kept me turning the pages. Now, as much as I loved Rabbit and Dolly, there were two? Two and a half? Three? (You’ll understand when you read the book) characters that have me crossing my toes that we will hear about down the road because they are that intriguing.

Also, for those music lovers out there. Ms. Cole has a Sick Fux Playlist up on Spotify already and if you love listening to music while reading, especially music that the author listened/was inspired by while writing the book, then you MUST listen to it while reading this book. It took me to that next level of enjoyment while reading about Rabbit and his Dolly.

So #TickTock it’s #TimeForTea so get ready to head down the rabbit hole and meet #Hellis!!

~ Copy provided by Ardent Prose PR & voluntarily reviewed ~

SICK FUX has officially claimed the #1 spot of my Best of 2017 list!

Oh, my…WOW!!!

Hands down THIS is Tillie Cole’s BEST story of the year. Highly anticipated on my list of must haves, the story of Ellis and Heathen did NOT disappoint. Its greatness also makes it difficult to review because so much of the story that makes it GREAT is also the essence of the story that must be experienced and can’t be told with words.

Told with a combination of “Natural Born Killers” meets childhood classic… this had everything to trap me within its pages and took me on a MAGNIFICENTLY, TWISTED adventure as they sought out their revenge. The mixture of innocence and dark catapulted the characters and their story to a level that help the story going on in my head even as I slept. It was all told in just vivid and exquisite detail.

A FAN-F*CKING-TASTIC read!

Visceral. This is the first word that comes to mind to describe this book. I confess that after reading the synopsis, I was a bit worried about what the plot would be like. However, I started reading without judgments and in the course of the pages I was in love. Narrated from an interpretation of the children’s story Alice in Wonderland, just in the first lines, we realize that the fairy tale and happy ending will not be part of this plot.

The plot revolves around Ellis and Heathan, who when they met as children, could not be more different. She is cheerful, full of life and completely innocent. He, despite his young age, is dark, reserved and already has a fascination with death. From this encounter between these two children a friendship is born which gradually becomes a strong, brutal, but true love that will be able to overcome the barrier of time, from the imposed evils and will be the key to the redemption of these characters.

Ellis is motherless, raised by the nanny, and lives on a large estate, being surrounded by luxury by her father and her uncles, as she calls her father’s business associates. Heathan was abandoned by his mother, and went to live with his father, who works at the estate where Ellis lives. She, despite the good life, is neglected. She does not receive attention, does not go to school, has no friends, and the only refuge she finds, is through the book Alice in Wonderland, which her mother read to her. So she dresses like the character, always in blue, with ribbons in her hair, holding her doll and loves to drink tea, just like in the book. The taste for tea was inherited from her mother, who was English, as well as the pink lipstick she wears daily and the perfume with scent of roses. An innocent child, who clings to good memories to compensate for the mother’s lack. Heathan’s father dies, leaving the boy in the care of Ellis’s father. And it is on the day of the funeral that the nightmare begins.

The majestic property and the respectable occupants around the society hide a sinister history. Over the years, Heathan is abused by these men. In the beginning he does not understand what happens to him, only when he is a little older, he becomes aware of the evils that are imposed on him, and having no way of escaping, he makes a deal, that he submits of his own accord, if Ellis never has that destiny. But on Ellis’ tenth birthday, one event changes their lives.

Ellis, who thought she was going to win a special birthday gift, ends up falling victim to who should protect her. When he realized that the girl he loved had the same tragic fate as his own, and as other children who were being brought to the mansion day after day, Heathan fills and ends up killing one of the “uncles.” He is then taken to a kind of prison, but outside the legal system, a place where wealthy people imprisoned their dejected ones and left them languishing.

Eleven years go by, and all this time, he trained to get revenge and when he finally gets away, he goes in search of the only person for whom he was able to feel something, Ellis. But the girl innocent and full of life no longer exists. In its place, there is a woman who has taken refuge within her own mind, to escape the horrors to which she was submitted. The girl who once loved is gone, and her mind in shreds thinks she is Dolly, the nickname that Heathan gave as a child because she looks like a doll, her doll alive. Heathan then embarks on the fantasy that they are in Wonderland and depart in search of revenge against the people who hurt them.

It’s a difficult plot, sad but very well written. You start to cheer so they can get revenge, even if the unfolding of this situation borders the insane. Neither will ever be the same again. He remembers everything that happened, suffers from seeing that Ellis is insane, and the trail of blood they leave through the cities, only proves that the two are not ordinary people. Ellis’ narratives broke my heart, and when she alternates moments of lucidity / madness, she can relate the horror to which was subjected. And it is sadder yet to see that Heathan, despite his morbidity and even insanity, falls apart every time he glimpses a little of what happened to Ellis. Two peculiar characters, who have psychological disorders, but who in their own way try to take refuge in each other to survive.
The theme is strong, not a book that will please everyone, some scenes may cause discomfort, but it was written in a majestic way. It’s a spectacular book. You cheer all the time for Dolly and her Rabbit so they can live happily in Wonderland. TIC Tac.

3-4 Stars for this fascinating cray cray version of Alice in Wonderland

That’s one of those books that’re very hard to rate. It started out sooooo good! I loved it and thought it was going to be at least a 4 or even 5 star read. Then it got to the point where it became repetitive and dragging and I was like okaaay that’s not more than a 3 star. So, after I finished the book, I have to say that for me personally it would be an overall 3 star read because I wouldn’t read it a second time. But on the other hand it was a very unique story and the writing was amazing. So, you see, it’s a fight between 3 and 4 stars. The deciding factor finally was the fact that I only finished the story because of my curiosity on how the book was going to end.

The story was a lot different to what I anticipated, though that was not at all the problem for me. I really liked the very fascinating characters and the visualization I had in my head of them. I loved Dolly and Rabbit and wished I could have brought them to life just to admire. They were so complex though that it would have been impossible to do them justice. Those crazy puppets really had some screws loose but who could blame them for what had been done to them?! I was really glad they got their revenge.

As you know from the warnings in the blurb, this book contains a lot of dark and sensitive subjects. I must say that I had no problem at all reading this story because I had read a lot darker books before. As long as the details don’t get too descriptive I have no problems with reading anything. Movies would be an entirely different thing though. Honestly, I think that this story wasn’t typically dark. It covered morbid subjects but that didn’t necessarily make it a dark read. It mostly was just really crazy due to the mentally disordered characters and all the blood play. One could even say it was close to a thriller. But yeah, it had dark themes.

Please don’t judge the book by my rating because I really wasn’t sure how to rate it due to the fact that I loved a lot of parts but just not all of them. The writing was awesome and if you like cray cray stories than this is probably right up your alley! And if not, let’s just admire this gorgeous cover!
This was my first book by this author and I was very surprised in a positive way but I’m a person that prefers plausible things. When a story (even fiction) gets too convenient for the characters and stretches plausibility too far so that I can’t wrap my mind around it anymore, it just ruins the fun for me. Those characters definitely lived in their own little world but when everything is allowed and there are no rules to follow, where’s the fun in that? I don’t say that this story is full of BS because it sure wasn’t. I just think it could have been better at some parts especially when the pace slowed down too much and it was on repeat of killing and literally bloody playing.

This was a very dark, enthralling and cray cray version of Alice in Wonderland but it was so weird and strangely compelling that it was actually great.

*****Spoilers*******

Well that was different. I have been in a really bad book funk for the last few months. I just haven’t been real excited to read anything. I have tried numerous rereads, and though I enjoyed my rereads they didn’t pull me out of my funk. Now I’m at the point were I am reading things I don’t read a lot of to change it up a bit and hope that it pulls me from this book funk from hell. Dark romances are reads I do every now and then but they are not my favorite romance genre. When I heard about Sick Fux well before it came out, I’m going to be honest I had no desire to read it. Then all the reviews started coming out. I read some spoiler-ish ones and was like yup I’m just gonna skip this one. After having some friends ask me to read this book so they could see my thoughts on it, I thought why not! Nothing else sounds good and here I am. Sick Fux is one of the darkest reads I have read, now the reason I say that is because it deals with children being drugged and raped repeatedly, and it’s pretty detailed. I will say that since I read spoiler reviews of this book a head of time and was full warned of the contents of the book I handled it better than if I would have if I walked into this read blind. It was still super hard to stomach but being warned helped. Now all that being said this was one twisted read. It got my attention and never let it go. Which was nice since nothing has held my attention lately.
This book started with Ellis Earnshaw and Heathan James meeting as small children. Heathan was a dark child, intrigued by death and blood. Given away by his mother who was scared of him he went to live with his father. His father didn’t want him either and let him know that. Heathan didn’t like people and couldn’t stand to be touched. Ellis was a sweet bubbly child that lived in her own imaginary wonderland, like her favorite book Alice in wonderland. Her mother was dead and she lived with her dad and his business associates who she called her uncles. Heathan called Ellis Dolly because she dressed up like Alice in wonderland and she called him her white Rabbit. They became each other’s world. Best friends that lived in Dolly’s wonderland. A couple years past and Ellis’s dad and “uncles” started drugging and raping Heathan. He put up with it so he could stay with his dolly. That was until he seen his sweet Dolly drugged, crying with blood running down her Alice and wonderland thigh highs with Uncle John holding her. He knew what they did to his sweet Dolly and he killed one of them trying to protect her. Ellis’s dad sent Heathan away, to a off the radar prison funded by the rich to hold the people that cross them. 11 years later, Heathan broke out of prison with the help of his cell mates Chapel and Henry/Hyde. The white Rabbit came back to save his Dolly. He didn’t know what shape she would be in, but he planned of healing her and killing all the men that hurt them. Dolly and Rabbit killing side by side getting rid of the bad guys in wonderland.
Dolly was totally crazy. She suffered so much in the 11 years Rabbit has been gone that she became a shell of a person. Not talking, moving or really living, just locked in her mind. She was so damaged that when Heathan finally broke through her catatonic state she believed her name was really Dolly and that Heathan was really the white Rabbit. She thought of Ellis as a friend of hers that lived there too. Almost like split personalities. The only way she could function at all was in her make believe wonderland. Though now she was no longer sweet and innocent. Dolly had a dark killer side. Heathan was sane but pretty much evil. He had always had a dark side and a need to watch things die, but after years of rape and being locked in a prison with two crazy serial killers he was all dark now. The only one that he cared about was his Dolly. Dolly was his obsession and other than his friendships with Chapel and Henry/Hyde she was the only one he had in his life. Even though Heathan was evil that loved to kill I still loved him. The way he loved his Dolly and went to elaborate measures to make Dolly feel safe and like she was really Alice in wonderland was totally swoon worthly in a crazy dark sort of way. I liked Dolly but at times she came off a little too child like and it was harder to connect to her. I did however love her darkside.
Heathan and Dolly together were dark and really sick fuxs but their love worked. I also really enjoyed the way they rode around killing the guys that raped them. If you have read other reviews by me you would know I can be a bit blood thirsty when I read books where the bad guys do such horrible things. I always want to see them get their comeuppance and boy did they get it in this book. So even though the killing in this book was graphic and gory I was cool with it. Also I really liked Chapel in this book. I know he was a serial killer and all but he intrigued me. Now I want to know his back story. Overall this book kept me on edge, had me biting my nails and thinking wtf did I just read. I love Tillie Cole and I think she is a great writer. I am glad I gave this book a change. Hopefully it will pull me out of my book funk!

I just fell down the Rabbit Hole of Tillie’s Re-creation and landed in a Chamber of horrors complete with Locked, inescapable doors . I’m still trapped in the book, my head too swollen with disturbing visuals and chilling screams. I’m in a daze , and you will be too, When you read it.
I just closed my kindle and am still not over it. A sadistic and cruel version of Alice In Wonderland.
The story that birthed in just 3 miles , from Oxford to Godstow, takes a new dimension in Tillie’s vision . A hefty measure of abuse and gore thrown in to add more sparkle , if I can dare to say.
Ellis (Alice) is the most adorable, compassionate child , growing up in secluded ( read confined) life in Earnshaw Estates. She plays with her Dolly all day , having picnics, listening to her mother’s mix tape on her boombox and dancing to it in gay abandon.

Even as a kid she lived most of her life in her head, imagination fueling her tea parties, her adventures around the property. She danced every minute she got. Imagined a life outside the walls of the estate.

Actually her dancing is encouraged and applauded by her dad and her uncles, for more sinister reasons, as we later come to know.
She meets Heathen James , the groundskeper’s son on a fateful day. He has a cruel, violent streak in him that seems to scare away adults. He burns insects and bugs, their burning flesh sating a dark need inside him. He’s a boy to be steered clear from. But as he is dark, so is Ellis light and she holds his hand to try to bring him in her world of sunshine and vibrant colours.
They become best buddies, joined at the hip and Heathen moves in the Mansion after his father’s death.
Here the fun stops. The story just plunges down the rabbit hole, taking the kids and throwing them to the wolves who tear at their flesh and souls. Unimaginable horrors mold Ellis into Dolly and Heathen into Rabbit. The dark hallways and closed rooms are echoing with kid’s screams and doors are perhaps streaked with gouged lines , them trying to escape. A very malevolent fog engulfs the tiny minds, they hold onto each other for comforts and quieten their sobs, Till one day………..
Alice is smashed under the villainous fists. Broken completely by the Sick Fux – The King Of Hearts, The Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee & Tweedledum, The Caterpillar , The Jabberwock and all this aided and abetted by The Queen of Hearts. She’s the first one in the crosshairs .
Rabbit takes the role of protector , but alas he’s just 12. A wee laddie and is easily clutched and caged in the dungeons into the belly of Earth . Forgotten. Forsaken.

“Welcome to the Water Tower. The keeper of all things dark. Like the trophy chest of the most fucked-up collector of the underworld.”
“The land of the forgotten. A place even the government don’t know about. No police. No Child Protection Services. Just you and me, and my men, and a hundred other twisted sick fucks that messed with the wrong people.”

He returns to save his Dolly but finds a zombie instead, a deafened/muted existed who is trapped in the realms of her mind, in a room with Locked doors , too big to escape, just like Alice. Repressed and in repose from the world , and bringing her out of the Hole is an uphill task.
They both embark on a mission in the Wonderland , the outside world to hunt down the castrators of their innocent souls.
What an endeavour they partake in , in the process, Dolly becomes a killer, they hunt and mutilate.
They find each other, hold each other upright and feed off each other’s blood thirst.
It was gross yet I couldn’t stop reading. The FEELS are very vindictive and I found myself cheering for the abused and downtrodden, my reader mind thrusting for the blood more and more. I wanted to partake in the carnage, slashings and slayings. The masterful ability of Ms.Cole to turn all of us into Sick Fucks Sick Fucks Sick Fucks Sick Fucks Sick Fucks Sick Fucks
How else do you explain the horrors existing in this world, encroaching and preying on innocent lives and not remain unaffected . I wanted to weild the blade myself and bathe in the spraying blood. Breathing hard and deep is required when reading this story. Be of open mind and prepare your childhood stories to be shadowed by darkness . But read it you must !
I had a couple of reservations regarding the physicalities. A thin , malnourished girl of 5’1”, merely a 100 lbs, taking on massive villains in very rigorous combats and winning , was a bit fable-worthy. And the ending somehow left me unfulfilled. I’d have wanted Ellis to envelop Dolly, but that thread was left lose. Erin was quick to be gone and somehow was Cartoonish.
But. Having said that , you cannot remain unimpressed with Tillie’ s ability to paint a bloody picture with her words, she’s master at making you feel. Anger, empathy, compassion, sympathy and vengeance with a mere flick of her pen. And the super impressive thing is , and i’m guessing, she wrote this ominously gory story , being a newbie mom. How ??!!!!!! Guess being a mother brought out her protective Omega instincts to feel so strongly about Paedophiles and abusers. I hear ya Tillie and applaud ya….

“Bright skies. Green fields . . . and lots and lots of tea parties.”
Her face lit up.
“With Earl Grey tea, buttered crumpets and strawberry tarts?”
“Only Earl Grey will ever do.”

The book ends on a positive note, which belied the mood uptil now, but that’s just my opinion.
It’s a fabulous story, forbidding and menacing. You will hear and taste the dread and heart palpitations shall threaten to burst open your chest.
Don’t say I didn’t warn ya !
I fell in love with Heathen James and his demeanour and characterisation was outstanding. Dolly didn’t sweep me as much as I’d like to have, which left me dissatisfied. I’d have loved to read about the Dad and uncles in more detail than was presented , so to classify it as a dark read , I don’t think so !!!

“Heathan James, you have eaten my heart and drunk my soul.

And the fact that the original fable was mashed so brilliantly with the dark overtones, every character was in original place , yet for a different reason. Rumour has it that Lewis Carroll was plagued with this sickness himself, having been found constantly in the company of kids in various stages of undresses. But that’s neither confirmed or denied. And later it was probably interpreted that drug abuse was the hinted undertone in the tea party and hallucinative adventures . Again , just rumours. That’s the beauty of these timeless tales, their perspective changes with your own growth as a human being, the more older and worldly you get, the more your own cynicism and bitterness is projected in the tales. Tillie took a tale and upended it on its head . And how !
4.5 Tick-Tock stars

This book is completely twisted. I would not recommend it if you are not into dark reads, because this definitely dark, twisted, and a little unnerving…which I happen to LOVE!
Heathan and Ellis kind of remind me of Joker and Harley Quinn!

Alice followed her Rabbit down the hole!

You know it’s an amazing book when the author has you falling in love with the killers! I was so glad that in the end everyone got what they deserved. Even those that are evil are capable of loving with their whole heart! This is a must read!!