Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Category: Adult
Genre: Thriller, Mystery
Content:  Lots of Strong language, Rape, Attempted Rape, Sex


Georgina, known as Geo, is a 30-year-old rising executive when her world comes crashing down. Her high school boyfriend has been identified and arrested for a series of serial murders, including Angela, Geo's best friend in high school. Angela disappeared without a trace at 16 and her body has just been found. Now Geo is under arrest for helping her then-boyfriend cover it up. And it's one of her other close friends from high school, Kaiser Brody, who arrests her.

Everything turns on what really happened that tragic night back when Geo and Angela were high schoolers. Everyone thinks they know the truth, but there are dark secrets buried deep within other secrets, and it may be too late for anyone to survive the truth.

Maybe I should just give up on reading thrillers. Yet again I found myself not enjoying one of them. The people in this one were too twisted for me. I need someone I can actually like in the books I read, and there was absolutely no one in this book that I could like. I wanted to like and sympathize with Geo, the main character, and Kaiser, her former friend turned police detective, but they were both too messed up for me. Kaiser less so than Geo. Kaiser is mainly guilty of not being able to get over his high school love - an unrequited love I might add - which happens to be Geo. I will never understand people who can't get past their high school love interest. I doubt many people at 35 would still be pining over someone from high school, but it happens way too often in novels, and that's the case here in this one. Kaiser makes some poor life choices because of this stupid fixation he has always had on Geo, including having an affair with a married woman.

The title of the book comes from a mason jar that was filled with cinnamon hearts - a gift to Geo from her 21 year old boyfriend, Calvin. It was an apology for hitting her. To Geo that jar symbolized the end of her teen innocence, but in reality her teen innocence ended before that. It wasn't the moment the jar was given to her, or the reason it was given to her. It wasn't the moment the jar was emptied of candy, or the events that occurred at that time. It was the moment Geo, a 16 year old, chose to dial the number a 21 year old man wrote on the back of her hand. She dated a 21 year old man behind her father's back and got sexually involved with him. I get that she was only 16 years old and she really wasn't equipped to handle the situation she found herself in, but she still made the choice in the first place to date someone she knew wasn't good for her. She still made the choice to hide the relationship from her father who loved her and whom she had a good relationship with, and it all began partly because she wanted to one up her best friend - because she felt like she was always in her shadow - and partly because he was just plain hot. That's stupid teen girl logic for you.

We go back and forth from past to present in the book and I didn't like Geo any more as an adult than I did as a teen. I honestly didn't care what happened to her, especially by the end of the book after we find out all the horrible little details of what happened that night when her best friend Angela disappeared. I can't say that I liked Angela either though. She was pretty unlikable herself, so nothing that happened to her or any of the other characters bothered me all that much. And when I stop to think about the fact that this book involves three rapes and an abusive relationship, among other things that would normally be difficult to read about in a book, I think that says a lot about how unlikable I found these characters. There was one attempted rape near the end of the book that I found really disturbing, because of the persons involved (that was just sick) and that's all I can say so that I don't spoil anything.

Overall this book reminded me of one of those true crime shows on the ID channel where the teen gets involved with an older guy who manipulates and abuses her, and her good judgment goes out the door from the moment she meets him. I've seen a few that could actually be this book. I prefer to spend my reading time with characters that are redeemable; that I can sympathize with.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me a copy of this book for review.






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