Kristin's Bookshelf

📚 Repossess My Heart
✍️ Callie Moss
🎧 Narrated by Fanny Ducette
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Let me preface this by saying – read the triggers.

Why did Nine keep reminding me of Billy from “Trick ’r Treat”? Every time he mentioned her damn eyes, all I could hear was, “Don’t forget the eyes.” 😂 IYKYK.

I really loved the premise of this book, but I’ll admit that parts of it made me feel a type of way… and not necessarily a good type of way.

I also spent a lot of time confused about the world Reverie and Nine live in. Maybe I would have had more clarity if I’d read the print version instead of listening, but I actually picked this one up specifically because of the narrator. In my head, I was getting some “Sin City” movie-esque vibes, but I could also be completely off base.

And I desperately wanted character art! There are bots, drones, and all kinds of stuff, but they still have hearts, so they aren’t bots, right? Or did I misunderstand that? I needed VISUALS.

Then there’s Reverie. What a sad freaking life. Her relationship with Nine is approximately a 10/10 on the unhealthy scale, and at least she seems to realize it.

Nine, meanwhile?

🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

His desire to terrify Reverie before unaliving her, his anger over how she interpreted what happened between them $exually, and some of the reasons behind his earlier decisions had me firmly in DOUCHEBAG ALERT territory.

Girl. RUN.

Except… Reverie is also a hot mess express, and somehow this man brings her comfort.

WTF?!

I liked the second half quite a bit more, especially as Reverie became tougher and learned how to hold her own. Like she says, surviving isn’t always about being stronger. Sometimes it’s about being smarter.

I also weirdly loved some of the characters having numbers for names. With everything happening in this world, it made everyone much easier to keep straight. Even though they were probably named that way to dehumanize them.

My opinion of the two leads never completely changed, though. Nine can call her “sweetling” all he wants. That man is still a walking red flag. Maybe he genuinely loves her, but his willingness to decide who is and isn’t worth saving, combined with the situations he puts Reverie in, kept me from ever fully warming up to him.

What I really appreciated was that Reverie maintained her humanity through everything. And, in his own way, Nathan managed to find some of his.

🎧 Narration: Fanny Ducette absolutely nails Reverie’s emotions. You can feel everything she’s going through. That said, I would have LOVED this as a duet. I pictured Nine with such a rough, gruff voice that I really wanted a second narrator to bring him fully to life.

Overall, this was dark, strange, uncomfortable, fascinating, and definitely unlike my usual reads. Nine and I are probably never going to be friends, but Reverie? I was rooting for that hot mess.