Let me start off by staying this…this book gave me serious heart palpitations. I had to speed through it because I just couldn’t stand waiting to see what the end outcome would be. As someone who is totally and completely obsessed with Criminal Minds, Ruthless by Carolyn Lee Adams was just like one of their episodes. I kid you not!

The opening scene where Ruth Carver has already been kidnapped (I’m not spoiling anything. It’s a fact. Read the first page.), where she is trying to figure where she is, how she got there, and what happened to her. The point where she realizes what has actually happened, and comes face to face with the sick twisted a-hole who thinks that he needs to punish Ruth. Unfortunately for Ruth, she figures out that he has done this many times already.

But this sicko has taken Ruth way into the mountains, deep into the forest where it’s pretty near close to impossible to drive into the cabin area. Good for him, bad for Ruth. But Ruth is a fighter, and she uses every ounce of fight in her to get away from this perv. And this is when the drama and the never-ending heart attack started.

It’s like one of those thriller/slasher movies where the main character does one thing, and you’re yelling at the screen at them saying “What are you doing?”, “Get the hell outta there!”, “OMG I CAN’T EVEN WATCH THIS ANYMORE I’M SO SCARED FOR THE CHARCTER!!”. Dude, that’s what this book was just like. I read it at night (mistake). I freaked myself out.

I was so scared for Ruth. She gets away, but she doesn’t, but she does, but she doesn’t. Round and round and round. OMG! And those neighbours!! I threw my reader down and refused to read for a bit. I was so angry!

And isn’t all of this what makes a fantastic, unforgettable read? Getting the readers emotions to reach out to the characters in the book? I personally think that author, Carolyn Lee Adams, wrote this book to perfection. Things are always scarier (to me anyways) when you read it, rather than watching the show/movie. My mind conjured the most heinous villain. My body felt the characters desperation (Ruth’s and the stupid psycho). My eyes didn’t want to tear away from the story, and my voice did cry out for Ruth.

What did I not like about this book? In all honesty, even though Ruth is such a strong-willed female character, there were times that I was so annoyed with her. I reflected after reading the book (because how could you not!) and did the whole “what would I do if I were in this sitch”, and that’s when a few of Ruth’s actions came up and annoyed me. I’m not sharing anything though! You seriously need to read this one for yourself, and experience it.

Fans of thrillers, or are on the lookout for strong female characters, definitely need to read Ruthless by Carolyn Lee Adams. It is one of those reads that will remain with the reader long after reading the last page.

Talk about intensity! This was another one of those novels where I was screaming at the main character as I felt she was not seeing the whole picture. What I didn’t enjoy was where the flashbacks were inserted into the novel. The flashbacks were valuable as they conveyed important information about the story and the characters but I felt that their placement into the story ruined the intensity of the book. The novel begins with Ruth being lead away in the back of a pickup truck. Tied and bloody, she is alone. Her senses are on high alert. Taking in the sounds, the smells, and trying to feel her way around, Ruth realizes that she is hurt but she cannot get a grip on her situation. Coming to a stop, the man who now stands before her is her father’s former employee. Ruth had him fired and now, this bitter man has some words of his own he shares with her.   Unable to recall his name, Ruth calls him the Wolfman and she realizes she is not his first victim. Alone in the woods, quiet and isolated, my senses are on high alert as the story intensifies. Ruth is determined to survive this ordeal and her wit and determination shows. As the tables turn, I’m about crawling out of my skin as I’m trying to be another set of eyes for Ruth as she’s dealing with securing the Wolfman and tending to her own injuries. I was getting nervous as she was taking too long, way too long as she went about her business and I started feeling panicky for what could transpire even though she thought she knew what she was doing. And then ahh, I knew it wasn’t’ going to be good but it sure made for a terrific ending.

Ruthless -- Carolyn Lee Adams

Ruthless is a book that very much keeps you hooked from the moment it begins.  Whether or not it's a good book though, that's kind of debatable and probably depends on the reader, really.  Aside from it keeping my attention, there really wasn't much else going for it.

The Story in Brief:
Ruth awakens to find that she has no idea where she is or what happened to her; she is hurt and she is trapped and she realizes that she is lying in a moving truck bed. It doesn't take long for her to find out that she's been kidnapped by a man who has plans to "purify" and "break" her and teach her a lesson before he kills her. With the strength of her own determination to survive, Ruth manages to escape only to fall into a dangerous hunting game as she loses herself in the wildlife of the mountains. And even as she continues to run, her captor is only one step behind her.


Brief Thoughts:
There really isn't much to this book, which is probably why it was so easy to read and so easy to finish reading. Ruthless is a straight-forward thriller about a young girl trying to escape a serial killer and rapist--something that is revealed very early on in the book.

At the same time, she also finds herself needing to survive the wilderness of the cold mountains, a hunger from being deprived of food, and all of the injuries she'd incurred upon being taken.

As much as I'd love to say that this was an extraordinary book, the truth is that I was mainly kept going by wanting to know what would happen to Ruth and how she would manage to escape and survive. The tangential self-revelations and her character development just seemed overshadowed by the intensity of the chase. Which is strange, because I'd been ready to abandon the book due to Ruth's obvious arrogant pride in herself and a latent prejudice she has against people who aren't at the same level of "sophistication" she claims her family comes from; it really DOES causes her to be a hard character to like. I was crossing my fingers and hoping for immense character development.

But anyway, with the concluding development of Ruth's character, I'm at least a bit appeased, even if not by very much.

All in all, Ruthless is exciting, simple as that.