Radd Reader's Reviews > The Five

“Rock bottom is the lowest a person can go, right? Well, I was born there.”

Rainey (22) is the only one to survive a party (4 others killed) and Justin (a victim advocate, psychologist) has been brought in to try to get the truth out of Rainey. ”Give me something, Ms. Day. How were all your friends brutalized, and yet you lived to tell the tale?”

My Thoughts:
WTF!!!!!!! Here are my emotions as I read this book....😬🤥🤐😲🥴🤮🤬🤯😡☹️💩🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️
Can I say again....WTF!!!

The story flips between present (mostly Justin’s POV) and past (Rainey’s POV). The past is Rainey’s retelling of her life over a period of about 5 years. It begins when she is 17 and moves into Clayton Heights and ends when the truth is revealed about what happened on the night 4 of her friends were killed.

Justin is trying to unravel the secrets and mysteries of Rainey and his POV shines a light on the verbal and non-verbal cues that surround Rainey.
“I was more than ready to sit down and have a long talk with Ms. Rainey Day, an admittedly beautiful girl who’d not only survived five years in Clayton Heights, but also the scene of a rampage style murder.”

His insight and the clues the reader got about Rainey’s appearance and mannerisms pulled me into the story because she definitely is someone you want to try to understand.
“There was an appeal to her, something raw, primal, and carnal. She was the type of girl men would want without knowing why. A siren, her presence so natural and unapologetic that it brought one purpose to mind.”

“Movement caught my eye; she was touching the mark beneath her elbow again.
Her fingers moved over it, and I had a clear view of five tally marks as if she was counting something.”
What did this represent?? 🤔🤔

Front and center during this time in Rainey’s history are the men from the house next door. Paul, Frankie, Joel, Jacob and Rowan. Rainey’s life choices involving these men was incredibly hard to understand. It’s hard for me to imagine how someone can lack so much self worth and respect for themselves. She literally did ANYTHING to get a joint, a tiny bit of coke or some money. I definitely wouldn’t describe her as an addict, so why she willingly agreed to everything they wanted was impossible for me to comprehend. The way this girl just let people use her and toy with her was utterly astounding and it completely boggled my mind. Just when I thought she couldn’t sink any lower, she would agree to something else that thoroughly degraded her worth even further. Once again, her life choices blew my mind. 🤯😬😲 Because I didn’t respect her, it was hard for me to like her.

As Justin met with Rainey and tried to make sense of her actions, he started to come to some conclusions:
”It was clear to me that she was a person who needed human contact, who would undergo abuse so she didn’t have to feel alone.”

“She was a woman created solely for the purpose of temptation. Everything about her, everything, brought out primal instincts that were more animal than human.”

“I would stake my professional reputation on the fact that she was playing a game, one she knew how to play to get exactly what she wanted out of men. There was never an in between. She was innocent or conniving, expertly so.”

As the story comes to a conclusion there are some twists and turns that take the story in an interesting direction. Some I guessed, some were surprising, some I’m not sure I could buy into.

This is a dark and disturbing story and centers around a girl who lacks self worth, self respect, has no shame and willing gives herself to men to be used in any fashion. I have never met a character like her and I honestly hope I never encounter her again. However, the inability to relate to the heroine is actually part of the appeal of the book and I will say that I “felt” things. It’s like a train wreck that you can’t turn away from. There is a love story buried in here, but it is unconventional, not what you expect and your boundaries will most likely be pushed on several occasions.

If you are looking for hearts and flowers, run far, far away from this story. 🏃‍♀️
If you want a twisted, f’d up story, reach for this. Once again.....WTF!!!🤯

There are too many triggers to list, so my advice is to stay away if you are concerned about what might be in his story.

Quotes:
“Because that’s what girls like me do. That’s what we’re good for. It’s just sex, right? Nothing special.”

“This is where it all started for me three years ago. I’d agreed to have sex with one guy for one joint, and as the days rolled on, I found myself in a moment where I was fucking strangers for cash.”

Quite frankly, had I experienced even one week of her life, I would have found myself strapped to a bed in a Thorazine haze once the doctors and nurses had wrestled me into a mental facility.”

”I wasn’t just going to Hell, I was driving the truck there myself.”

“People think I’m stupid, and in many ways, they’re right. But when it came to manipulating people to get what I wanted, I was a master of moving the game pieces, offering myself up like some poor, dumb girl, too weak and too scared to do anything about it.”

“Our love story was a different beast, one filled with insanity, with heartache and misfortune.

“Still, we survived, and that just goes to show that you should never look down on a person who the world will tell you is unworthy. You never know what that person is willing to do to survive.”