Erika
I was told that dreams were our heart’s desires. My nightmares, however, became my obsession.
His name is Michael Crist.
My boyfriend’s older brother is like that scary movie that you peek through your hand to watch. He is handsome, strong, and completely terrifying. The star of his college’s basketball team and now gone pro, he’s more concerned with the dirt on his shoe than me.
But I noticed him.
I saw him. I heard him. The things that he did, and the deeds that he hid…For years, I bit my nails, unable to look away.
Now, I’ve graduated high school and moved on to college, but I haven’t stopped watching Michael. He’s bad, and the dirt I’ve seen isn’t content to stay in my head anymore.
Because he’s finally noticed me.
Michael
Her name is Erika Fane, but everyone calls her Rika.
My brother’s girlfriend grew up hanging around my house and is always at our dinner table. She looks down when I enter a room and stills when I am close. I can always feel the fear rolling off of her, and while I haven’t had her body, I know that I have her mind. That’s all I really want anyway.
Until my brother leaves for the military, and I find Rika alone at college.
In my city.
Unprotected.
The opportunity is too good to be true as well as the timing. Because you see, three years ago she put a few of my high school friends in prison, and now they’re out.
We’ve waited. We’ve been patient. And now every last one of her nightmares will come true.
I read Corrupt on a whim. I usually don’t read romance books; I always need the extra thrill element that fantasy novels provide, but something with this novel reeled me in and I was hooked. Usually books with duel POVs tend to lose the surprise element, but the author did an amazing job of not revealing too much; she kept the suspense and kept the reader interested; I think I finished this book in like 15 hours! The parallel storylines were done so well; she illustrated two different times which helped show how much the characters have evolved, not to mention how much the reader sees the love Michael has for his friends and how it shifts from a friend-centric story to a family-centric story. The storylines line up so perfectly, and by the time you really see what happened on Devil’s Night; you know that Rika is innocent and you’re already KNOW who it was; and the excitement (and desire) of revenge makes it impossible to put down the book. This is good because the only thing I didn’t like about this book was the random couple of chapters before the confrontation scene on the Pithom, it was just random scenes strung together that didn’t really serve a purpose; but then I realized it a romance novel and Michael and Rika need to get together before everything ended so I guess it served some purpose but I didn’t find it necessary; I just wanted to see what they would do to ****** ;). The plot twist with Damon’s character was one the best i’ve ever seen, NO ONE could’ve seen that coming even though it was implied so heavily (and it’s crazy to think that even HE didn’t think as to who it was; and thankfully didn’t go through a self-hatred arc because of it (mostly because he already hates himself so much)).
But what really got me interested is Michael’s character struggle choosing between Rika and his friends. The age old mystery of “who will it be? Her or Us?”. His character was a bit more interesting then Rika just because we could see his inner turmoil. Years ago, he couldn’t be with Rika because of his blood family, and now he can’t be with her because of his chosen family, nonetheless his choice didn’t make me feel like he was betraying his friends; but that could’ve been because the reader has already figured it out. Rika’s character development in the last couple of chapters is phenomenal, especially because I didn’t like her comment towards Alex’s profession; like it was a pity that some people had to work in the sex industry to afford school and home; “[Alex] “Men who hire escorts aren’t paying for the sex…they’re paying us to leave when it’s done.” [Erika] Nice. I looked away, feeling bad for her…you may be the good time, but you’re also the dirty secret they hide. She must’ve seen the judgement in my eyes…”. But her friendship with Alex was like a more visible change in perspective for her and a visual guide for the reader to follow to see how much she changes. While it’s important to note that her transformation began on Devil’s Night years ago, you can’t see how much she’s changed until the end; I was taught to be brave from my father. Dip your toe in every ocean and try everything and anything. Learn, explore, take the world on… And from my mom I learned self-sufficiency. Of course, she’d taught me by default, but watching her showed me exactly who I didn’t want to be. And from Michael–as well as Damon, Will, and Kai–I learned to breath fire. I learned to walk as if the path were carved for me and me alone, and to treat the world as if it should know I was coming. (Chapter 11). The influence the guys had on her character wasn’t suffocating; it was liberating. She finally realized that the people around her have taught her all that they could and now it was her world and she controlled it, especially when she decided to face them head-on during their hunt. A couple chapters later, when she’s telling Michael off she says: “I don’t win by playing your games. I win by making you play mine.” (Chapter 24), which is the climax of her epiphany that no one can hurt her if she’s the one pulling the strings; if she’s her own Prince Charming. In the epilogue, Michael realizes it too; “Without the events of that night, I wouldn’t have challenged her. She wouldn’t have learned to be strong and fight back or how to own who was and save herself. …We wouldn’t have made each other the people we were now. Everything happens for a reason, she would say. But the epilogue, I would say, was Michael chapter. The flashback to his past gave readers a little insight as to how Rika made him who he was; “I bottle up what’s inside me–the anger and this need I can’t explain. Something inside of me wants to self-destruct, wants to make messes, and wants to do the things others won’t do. I don’t want to hurt people, but the more time passes, the more it feels like i’m trying to crawl out of my head. I want chaos. And I’m tired of being powerless. I’m tired of [my father] keeping me down… Michael wasn’t always so open with who he was and what he wanted to do, he was trapped in his own head, controlled by his father and name, bound by his duty; until he realized he had a duty to himself; ““I’m weak. I hate who I am. Everything gets in my head and I have no control. “People don’t see me Rika,” I confide. “I only exist except as a reflection of him.””. I think this is where I could relate to Michael the most; the fear of existing as a shadow of someone else, never truly being able to express yourself without judgement and soon it just becomes a endless cycle of fear and you just think of yourself as a coward or a pawn in someone else’s game. But then Rika said; “…it’s like you’re saving your energy for something. Holding back… but it doesn’t make sense. Life is one-way, and there is not return trip. What are you waiting for?”. This was, by far, one of the best quotes I’ve ever read, Rika points out that we can’t hold ourselves back because other’s demand it; it’s our life, and we need to take control and mold ourselves to fit our own warpath, people will either move out of your way, join you or create their own path right beside yours; you just need to choose who you will be.
