Reflected in You by Sylvia Day
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Summary: Gideon Cross. As beautiful and flawless on the outside as he was damaged and tormented on the inside. He was a bright, scorching flame that singed me with the darkest of pleasures. I couldn't stay away. I didn't want to. He was my addiction... my every desire... mine.
My past was as violent as his, and I was just as broken. We’d never work. It was too hard, too painful... except when it was perfect. Those moments when the driving hunger and desperate love were the most exquisite insanity.
We were bound by our need. And our passion would take us beyond our limits to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession..
Okay, I just need to get this off my chest first and then I can get the real review done. Gideon saying to Eva, "You're so beautiful, it hurts to look at you." was straight out of My So Called Life (Angela said that would be what he'd want to be told right before making love). I have not heard it since or read it anywhere else and it took me right out of the moment & Cross lost a couple of cool cred points with me.
The second installment in the Crossfire Trilogy is quite more a merry-go-round than rollercoaster. I loved the first book and was extremely interested to see where the second book would take our characters. In all honesty, it wasn't that far for the majority of the book. In the first half, Eva & Gideon continued on their usual path of not using their words to resolve conflict & opting for sex as a substitute. Of course, this means that they don't resolve a whole lot. They're angry. They have sex. They quarrel. They have sex. There's another misunderstanding. What happens? They have sex. Shocking, I know. These are not two people very adept in problem solving in their personal lives. Because of this tendency, I didn't find their sexual connections, in the first half of the book to be as blistering hot. And the interlude after the concert was just sad. On both of them. I just wanted someone to phone Dr. Petersen because if ever any two people needed a session for a chat, it was these two.
I'd been wanting to know what's going on with both of them on a deeper level since book one but unlike Eva, I'm not as easily distracted by the appearance of penis. Eva gave good lip service to what I was often thinking about a good many things from Gideon's behavior veering into completely unacceptable territory when it came to boundaries to needing to have him open up and let go of some of those secrets but mostly, she capitulated. I thought they both resorted to a juvenile sort of tit-for-tat revenge and it was more often than not over something that could easily have been resolved if one of them had the presence of mind or maturity to stop for a second, collect themselves and use their words. Instead, the grenade toss over the wall always made whatever the original thing was, exponentially worse. It seemed like their version of a love game. Sometimes I saw Eva's reasoning & other times, it just seemed convenient & contrived. Gideon was as much of a conundrum as they come & I was so frustrated waiting for answers, I skirted the edge of no longer caring what his deal was. But alas, I don't have to agree with the character's decisions to really care about what happens, so none of this was a deal breaker for me. Her jealousy was running higher in this book than the last and she seemed far less confident, especially in the first half. I missed confident Eva & I didn't want her sacrificed just to be with Gideon. Confident Eva showed up eventually and I was rooting for her again.
I liked that Eva got a couple girlfriends this go round. She needed them. Meg & Shawna I hope weren't just props for the plot & provide actual friendship in the final book. I loved Cary as I did in the first book. He was relied upon to give Eva the benefit of his opinion & more often than not, I completely agreed with him. I was a bit put off that
I truthfully don't know how I feel about the ending. The conversation between the detective and Eva was interesting and provided a nice neat package of expository explanation but I don't know that I was sold. It wasn't that the explanations didn't make sense, they fit together nicely but... it just came together too easily and quickly in that moment, for me. Also, the detective was far more comfortable with vigilantism than I could buy into. That may not be a flaw in the storytelling but in my ability to suspend disbelief as a reader. Additionally, I thought it was in a way, giving Gideon another out to not use his words to tell Eva something of high importance. I did like that we finally got an answer as to what happened with Gideon as a child.
Overall, I quite enjoyed this part of the story (I read it in a day). It was a lot better than many middle books in a trilogy and had a lot of tense moments & excitement to go around. I didn't think it was as sexy as the first but I didn't need it to be because what's most important to me is how Eva/Gideon manage their issues and achieve wholeness. I'm hoping for more Dr. Petersen in the final book and copious amounts of sanity because where we end in this book, is the opposite of that. I'm still very much looking forward to see where Eva/Gideon end up and am pulling for them to make it. I've already pre-ordered Entwined In You.
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