BOOKS: Take Me There ♡

by Carolee Dean

Dylan has a bad-boy past and a criminal record. He knows that rich, beautiful Jess is way too good for him - but she has always been the one person who sees through his tough exterior and straight to his heart, and he has been hopelessly in love with her from the first time they met. He would change his life for a chance with her. But trouble follows Dylan wherever he goes, and a deadly mistake soon forces him to hit the road and leave his dreams behind. He's on the run and in search of answers - answers to questions he wishes he'd never asked.

This may be one of the best books I've ever read. It's the kind of book that keeps you hanging on to every last word - a page-turner - and leaves you mesmerized and different from the person you previously were before reading this book. Quoting one of the reviews on Amazon,

Take Me There is a page-turner; there are emotionally intense scenes that kept me on the edge of my seat! It's good movie material, really. There is profanity but it's not excessive.I believe anyone who reads this book will learn some very important lessons.

I completely agree with the whole "good movie material" thing mentioned above. These are the kinds of stories people should be reading because there is so much truth hidden under the veil of fiction that it takes you by the shoulders, shakes you, and - like I said - leaves you feeling different about the world around you when you're done. It holds a simple lesson - one that I will leave you to figure out for yourself when you read it - something we've heard so many times before, but Carolee Dean took it and made sure it will forever be engraved in our brains.

Despite being a work of fiction, Take Me There is so realistic, you have to stop every now and then to wonder how many people have gone through a similar situation as our protagonist, Dylan. It kind of makes you emphathize for some of the rebellious youth. I don't want to give out too much information, so I'll stop here. I'll admit both the summary and the cover could be a bit misleading (don't bother reading if you think it's a light-hearted romance story... IT'S NOT), but it's a good book nonetheless.

Carolee Dean is a brilliant author and she did her research on this one, making sure every little detail about real things and places were spot on. She has successfully sent the message she intended to through this book, and the fact that she mixed in poetry every now and then makes it all the more a unique and fresh read. The characters are as far from Mary Sues and Gary Stus as the characters in Twilight are close to it. Each character has a believable background story, another factor that reels you into the book more. By the time I finished, I was crying like a baby.

I don't think this review would be complete if I didn't shed some light to my favorite quotes I found in the book. There were some lines that made me cry, although I doubt Carolee meant them to make me feel as such. Maybe it was just the way they were written that made things so bittersweet. Sigh... back to the point. Here are my favorite quotes from the book. I promise I won't spoil anything!

1. “How far can you go down the wrong path before you can't get back on the right one?”
2. “As long as you're breathing, there's still hope.”
3. “They say money changes you. It isn't true. It changes everybody around you.”
4. “A man's beliefs are his destiny. As soon as my father believed his life was over, it was.”
5. “Do you ever look at the people around you and wonder how you ended up with them?”
6. “I have loved and been loved, thoroughly and deeply by good and decent people who believed in me. Who let me dare to believe in myself.”

Besides those, I also liked some of the poems found within the pages. I don't want to spoil them for you so that you can experience reading them and being in awe firsthand, but I'll leave you with a photo of the very first one you will see (I took the photo for instagram). If you've read the book, comment below with regards what you thought about the book but don't spoil it! If you have to, be sure to add "SPOILERS!" before doing so, just so other people who haven't read it can get a warning. :) It's raining hard in the Philippines, so stay safe wherever you are!