RIOT HOUSE – CALLIE HART

**Spoilers Alert, Read On With Caution**

This was a book that GoodReads recommended to me, and I read about the first five percent, and then stupidly let a few lukewarm reviews deter me from carrying on. I switched to reading THE HAPPY EVER AFTER PLAYLIST, finished it, and flipped back stumbling on gold. RIOT HOUSE is so insanely clever, thought out and intense! I wasn’t expecting the plot to have half the twists that it did, or for it to be so complex at times with its plot. I was expecting a bully/hate-to-love romance in a boarding school, and yes we got that, but also a heavily foreshadowed, articulate story of two broken down teens
finding love in a desolate and unwanted place. Surprisingly, I also really liked the books cover for its simplicity, and for how for once the model used was an accurate depiction of who the author is describing as their main guy.

“Wren’s a barren wasteland, and I have no intention of wandering that wasteland, knowing I won’t find anything to nourish me there.”

Elodie Stillwater is the daughter of a military colonel, she’s been living in Tel Aviv, until her father has her relocated to New Hampshire to join Wolf Hall Academy. Here, she meets Wren Jacobi for the first time on her first night of arrival. Unbeknownst to Elodie, Wren has his eye set on her, but not with desire. He wants to break her, see her innocence said and her light dim. He see’s her as innocent, wholesome and untainted; a target all too easy for him to claim and toss away. Little does Wren know , that Elodie has a dark past too, darker than he can imagine.

“I’m cursed with this bewildering fascination over you, and it’s really becoming… inconvenient, Stillwater.”

Reading through Wren and Elodie’s interactions, there is one thing I know for absolute certainty. They’re addictive. Every meeting, conversation and chapter left me hanging on the edge, desperate for more. Their interactions were so biting and fierce, so intensely tunnelled around them that I was left constantly waiting for when they’d next engage, and if they’d finally break under the pressure of their chemistry. Normally in these books, I always find myself leaning toward favouring the male characters, as they always have that extra edge to them; and maybe I just love a broken boy in my fiction, who knows. But with RIOT HOUSE I admired both Wren and Elodie equally. They were a perfect match, completely balanced in their power struggle over one another. Elodie’s resistance and outright refusal of Wren is what I enjoyed the most, the chase and hunt was spectacularly written. Some books rush or ruin the chase. They make the girls too easy to catch, or too quick to surrender. Not Elodie. Elodie is a triumph of sheer determination to not collapse under the heavy gaze of a hot boy. She holds her ground until she finally believes that Wren is being completely genuine, and that it isn’t some sick game he’s playing with his Riot House friends. Getting to experience all of this through both their eyes is what makes this so compelling to read, I constantly found myself needing to know what the other one thought, or how they gaged a certain situation.

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

“There’s a very real danger that he’ll hold his cup to my lips, and I’ll drink down his poison like I’m dying and he’s the cure.”

So, the twist towards the end. OH MY GOD! The misdirects we’re fed the entire book are genius! I was completely on the edge of my seat about where it could possibly be going as soon as Mara’s journal is found and Mercy is seen talking to Fitz. The way the book explodes out was truly like watching fireworks, as so much was happening, but systematically it all made cohesive and beautiful sense. Everything fell perfectly into place, creating a stunning spectacle of a climax. One thing I sure as shit didn’t see coming was that Fitz being psychotically in love with Wren to the point of malicious attack and murder. I thought he’d instead be used as a cutesy, relatable English teacher with his relaxed class room setting, and ballsy dialogue with all the students in his class. But little did we know! Wow.

“You are going to be mine, Elodie Stillwater. Of all my sins and misdeeds, making you fall in love with me will be the very worst of them.”

A final thought is just that I’m still so curious as to why Wren had that chipped black polish, I need to know more about Pax and Dash – the other Riot House boys, and if Carina ends up dating Dash after all he does to her. Basically I really need another book in the Crooked Sinners series, and I need plenty of Wren/Elodie cameos as I need updates! Frankly, I wanna see all the characters again.