Started Sins & Needles Jan. 17, 2015
Finished Sins & Needles Jan. 18, 2015
Ellie Watte was raised by con artists and that is what her whole life consisted of, finding the next person to con. She moved from town to town finding different ways to con people. She’s currently 26 and has been telling herself for awhile now that she’s going to quite the whole act and have a normal life. Well, it’s a bit harder than she thought since she’s grown up to know nothing different. Finding ways to con people seems to run in her blood. After a con goes bad she decides to move back to the only place she calls home, Palm Valley, California. After spending some time with an old friend from her past, Camden, he realizes her plan to con him. With no other option available she’s forced to help him.
If you saw my previous post about this book you saw that I had some issues about the setting in this book. It was even worse when Ellie would describe the streets or places they would go to because they were actual places but the city itself wasn’t real.
Oh well, I quickly got over it and focused on the plot of this book. Ellie repeatedly said she was going to stop conning people, that she wanted to start fresh and live a normal life. Wooo! Yes go girl! But no, it couldn’t have been that simple. It’s easier said than done I guess in this case. When she saw people the first thoughts that went through her mind were the possible way she could con them and gain money from them. Sad sad sad.
I believe if she truly wanted to stop the conning business she could have tried harder. She said it once in the beginning when she ran into Camden, an old friend from high school, but then once she noticed how much money he brought in from his Tattoo Artist gig she couldn’t resist. It was like that solely encompassed her mind. That’s all she thought about, she came up with different ways she could break in and steal his money, the escape route, a list of possible safe combinations, etc. To be quite frank, it was irritating.
Also note that this book switches a lot from present time to past. Some of the flashbacks I thought were cute but a lot of them I found myself quickly scanning through them just to get back to the present.
At first I didn’t know how I was going to say this next part because I thought it was going to be deemed a spoiler but since it is in the Goodreads summary, I think it’s safe to say.
So as she’s thoughtfully planning her heist she never once thinks about the possibility that Camden already suspected she was going to con him. She relied to heavily on the fact that he liked her to suspect anything. So as shes in the middle of trying to steal all of his money he comes up behind her and surprises her.
He caught the whole act on tape and that is when he starts his plan to blackmail her. His whole demeanor basically changes. He doesn’t seem like the same ol’ Camden we witnessed in the first half of the book. He gives her three choices: go to jail, get a bullet through your head or help him out. So obviously she chose to help him out, even though she has no idea what she’s walking into.
This book was pretty predictable up to this point. What kind of trouble could this talented tattoo artist get himself into that he needed a con artist’s help.
His love for her at times seemed more like a crazed obsession which I wasn’t a big fan of. Their relationship in the beginning (which you get glimpses of from the flashbacks) weren’t something I was a fan of. And the way he would talk to her and some of the things he said when he caught her conning him just threw the whole relationship off for me. Definitely not my favorite couple ever.
I don’t find myself reading the rest of the series to be honest, and I don’t see myself reading anymore of Karina Halle’s work. Many times I wanted to put this book down but I kept forging on hoping I would somehow end up liking it. But sadly, that wasn’t the case.
Love,
Liv
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