Made for You by Melissa Marr
Genre: Contemporary, Thriller, Romance
Published by: Harper Collins
Pages: 336
Format: ARC E-Book
Rating: ★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

The premise made this book sound super duper interesting. Girl can see the deaths of others? Bring it on. Crazy murderer on the loose? I’ll give it a go. Completely cliched romance that pops out of nowhere and characters with little personality or development? Eh, maybe not. I was so ready for this book to be exciting and thrilling, but it turned out that the only original part of this book was the chapters from the killer’s perspective – which were gross and creepy, and kind of uncomfortable to read. I was looking forward to read something by this author as I’ve been meaning to look into the Wicked Lovely series. Now I’m not so sure.

This book started out a lot like Rebel Belle, you know, beautiful southern belle who’s at the top of the popularity ladder. Then there’s an accident and suddenly she’s got super powers. Who saw that coming? She also has this perfect boyfriend, but, wait for it, she’s not content with her life, because she’s actually in love with The Boy Next Door.

The relationship between Eva and Nate was really quite frustrating, because it seemed like it came out of nowhere, and it was just hastily explained by his troubled past and their growing apart (they were BFFs as kids) that stopped them from being together. Suddenly he’s her carer? What kind of a mother hires her daughters love interest to be said daughter’s servant? I was so confused by this change in relationship.

All of her friends were superficial, except Grace, who was perhaps the only likeable character. This ‘perfect’ friendship group was the perfect backdrop for a murder mystery, because who would suspect one of Eva’s loyal friends for running her over? This is then emphasised in ‘Judge’ aka. The Killer’s chapters where he tries to back up his motives with a lot of religious metaphors. A pretty twisted guy. He does a lot of disgusting things and I seriously don’t want to image where the inspiration for this character came from. It was pretty obvious about 75% through who the killer was out of all her friends. He had to have been named previously, it was definitely a guy and he would be the least suspecting character in the group, which probably means he’s the light relief or something. In other words, I saw the reveal coming.

Made For You reminded me of the Sarah Alderson novels that I’ve read recently. (Reviews in the Index) It had the same ‘dangerous new love interest’ feel, so I can’t say that I was surprised by anything, because it was a very cliched story for the genre. HOWEVER, the tension building was very good! And the killer’s POV was definitely haunting and memorable. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep at night.

I’ll probably give this author another chance, because made For You wasn’t really what I was expecting. I definitely could’ve done with more emphasis on the predicting death element that we were promised in the blurb, because it wasn’t well explained or used for much more than increasing tension. Also everyone seemed totally cool with the popular girl suddenly being able to predict death! I was glad that the friends decided to stick with Eva despite her scarred appearance – maybe they weren’t as superficial as I thought.

Overall, I found myself skimming the majority of this book and I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. Therefore, I give Made For You 1 star, and hope that if you decide to pick it up that you’ll enjoy it more than I did!