Stronger (Runaway #1) is an unbelievably touching new adult story by Lexie Ray. I’ve never really cried over a story or movie, but this story brought tears to my eyes.
I didn’t have a home. This place certainly wasn’t my home. It was as much my home as Jack’s house had been.
Jasmine’s life has never been easy. She’s been moving from town to town her whole life, she and her mom struggling to make ends meet. And her life has taken a turn for the worse since her mom made them move in with her new boyfriend. A horrible man who treats Jasmine like trash. Besides that, he makes Jasmines mother an alcohol addict.
Eventually that man starts abusing Jasmine. And because of the alcohol, her mom isn’t there for her anymore. At one point her mom dies of alcohol poisoning. And the abuse gets worse after that. One day Jasmine manages to escape. She has nowhere to go, and lives in the streets, homeless.
And then one day where is this bright beacon op hope, an opportunity that seems to good to be true. Someone willing to take her in, someone who really seems to care about her. A woman named Mama agrees to take her in, she can stay with her as long as she works at her nightclub. Jasmine agrees, happy to have been given a chance. But she soon finds out it really was too good to be true. The nightclub is a brothel.
Once I’d started, the words had tumbled out, building a frantic crescendo in their haste to leave my body. Someone had to know what happened to me. Someone had to help me.
One night it all goes too far. Jasmine flees again. And she is disappointed again. She flees another time. Then she meets Nate. A really nice man, who really seems to care about her. Nate is so cool. He made me smile when the story made me oh so sad. But I thought the author could have given him more characteristics. I don’t know how old Nate is. I only know he is a ‘man’. For all I know he could well be fourty years old.
Stronger is a great story about losing and finding hope and love. It is really touching. The lack of descriptions didn’t bother me though. It is well written and has so many things going on in it.
So I’ll give it a big 4 out of 5 stars. 4 and a quarter if I could. 🙂
