Unravels Into An Intense Thriller
I went into this novel knowing absolutely NOTHING, but excited because I really enjoyed Wohlsdorf’s first novel Security–which was basically a slasher film in a novel. This time around, Wohlsdorf has written a crime novel/thriller/coming-of-age. Rainy Cain, a seventeen-year-old girl, is already having a difficult life when her mom dies by suicide and a cop tries to help her out when the system to care for her is already overfilled. What she doesn’t know is that secrets kept from her will soon have her running for her life… I listened to the audiobook in one day on this one as I was really invested in Cain and, since I didn’t read the summary beforehand, I got to be pleasantly surprised that the story went in directions I didn’t even image when I began the book. And as much as I love a kickass girl/woman, I also really like the realistic scared/struggling/doing-their-best-not-to-faint-no-matter-how-tough-they-are girl/woman.

This book did not work for me. I found the MCs unlikeable and sadly, I was unsympathetic to their plight. I also found the writing style disjointed and choppy, which after several attempts made me DNF the books about 5 chapters in.

I spoke with the publisher and explained why I was unable to post about this book at the time of its release.

this book is…a lot.

if you’re not sure whether that is a positive or negative assessment, join the club, because i’m not sure, either, but i <i>am</i> sure that the statement is 100% factual.

i was so excited when i first heard about this. wohlsdorf’s debut, [book:Security|25810610], was a helluva fun book - great premise, great twists, great atmosphere, great energy. it was like nothing i had ever read before, and i have read many books.

this one is called BLOOD HIGHWAY, which is a title invoking headbanging adrenaline and splatter for all, and the synopsis is all kinds of my bread and butter:

<blockquote>A gripping, surprising, and sexy thriller with a big, pounding heart, <i>Blood Highway</i> takes a seventeen-year-old girl on a brutal journey into adulthood on a road trip that threatens to kill her before she reaches the end.

Rainy Cain, a tough, troubled high school senior, desperately wants to escape the confines of her life in Minneapolis. When her increasingly unstable mother suddenly commits suicide, Rainy thinks she has found her chance. Instead, her father, Sam—who she had always believed died before she was born—escapes from prison and abducts her, taking her on a cross-country trek in pursuit of millions of dollars that he believes her mother had kept from a botched robbery years earlier. On their heels the whole way is a young Minneapolis detective intent on bringing Rainy safely home. It is an odyssey that will test Rainy’s considerable instincts about sanity and madness, and keep readers turning pages till the twisty end.</blockquote>

and it’s not that the synopsis is <i>lying</i>, but it’s certainly tilting the book a bit so you’re seeing more of its back end. i mean, i read phrases like “a brutal journey into adulthood” and “a road trip that threatens to kill her” and i’m expecting a story whose resting state is “intense” and builds from there, but that is not the case here at all.

the “abduction” slash road trip doesn’t occur until nearly 150 pages in, just under the halfway mark, and the novel is frontloaded with a slow and emotionally complex unrolling of dramatic layers; mothers and suicide and grief, which is a shitty combo for me on my best day, worse when i’m all juiced up for a dark crime action thriller.

i knew that her mother’s suicide was going to be an element of the story, obviously, but i thought it would happen early on, maybe even offscreen, and i figured it would just be the event that set the daddy-daughter road trip/crime spree in motion, with the bulk of the book arcing à la [book:She Rides Shotgun|23361199]/[book:Blackbird|36498001]/[book:The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley|30556459].

i was completely unprepared for how deeply this would dwell on the suicide's aftermath, focusing on guilt and grief and mental illness and emotional abuse. i actually stopped reading (twice) to double-check the synopsis to make sure i hadn’t imagined that there was going to be a BLOOD HIGHWAY in my future. even rainy seems caught off-guard by how much space is given over unto unpacking her emotional baggage:

<i>You say to yourself, “She’ll do it, and then it will be over.” But then she does it, and the fallout keeps falling.</i>

there’s a lot of slow gloom before we get to the action.

and then it’s one unpredictable story arc after another. nothing about this is a black-and-white thriller; every situation grates just slightly against expectation. all of the relationships in this book seem slightly distorted, edging close to uncomfortable.

rainy is a slippery one - she’s become a teenage con artist out of necessity, but her persona swings from tough n’ jaded to vulnerable n’ naive at the drop of a hat, and while i like her best when she’s got her swagger on, her insights are frequently too psychologically cumbersome to be coming out of a teenage girl’s brain:

<blockquote>Don’t look back, they say. What you survive stays behind you, forget it, move on. But that never works. Pretending it does just keeps the damage sitting on your shoulder, until inevitably, you become your damage. It’s the type of realization you want to pass on to somebody. It’s the type of realization you get when all your somebodies are bodies.</blockquote>

still, there’s something appealing about the cinematic melodrama of that last line, and it highlights this performative quality she’s got to her, which rings true of a teenage girl still test-driving her persona:

<blockquote>”Look,” Blaine said. “People are mostly doing the best they can - “

“Don’t do that. Don’t platitude me. People are mostly doing the best they’re willing to do, not the best they can. A person’s actual best is pretty damn good, but it’s a lot of work. So most people find the maximum amount of work they’re willing to do and then they call that their best.” It came out in a rush. I’d never had that particular thought before. I loved it instantly, its mercilessness.</blockquote>

i appreciate the ways in which this book refuses to play nice with type or genre. everything requires a qualification, like how it’s not technically an abduction because rainy goes along willingly, and her father gives her plenty of freedom, even allowing her to call her new cop friend from the road more than once, and although he’s been advertised as a stone-cold criminal, for most of the trip, he’s quite an affable gent.

which is one way of looking at it - affable might just be the giving of zero fucks until fucks need to be given. no need to exert one's will until the stakes demand it, after all.

<i>Perhaps it was possible to be too at-home in the world. To see it as a show that’s just for you. Then there’s no ethics, no core. There’s only what you want.</i>

there’s also a romance plot shoehorned into this that puts the “ick” in problematic(k).

<i>”You were the best thing about the worst thing that ever happened to me.”</i>

i was not on board with that development - i thought it was unnecessary and a bit more self-destructive than i would have expected from a character who’d already proven her knack for survival.

eventually, though, blood highway is for real. adrenaline is released. heads are banged. splatter occurs.

all in all, a scattery distribution of highs and lows.

although it shattered the enjoyment-expectations i’d formed by my love of her first novel and the narrative-expectations i'd formed by this book’s synopsis, i liked more of it than i didn’t like, and i'm keen to hear reactions from other readers on this one.

<i>”How much slack do you have to cut yourself before you become a monster?”</i>

3.5 stars rounded up.

Blood Highway abruptly starts with the main character dying her hair in a bus station restroom. It is a deep plunge into the character of Rainy Cain, and without preamble (or justification later), it felt harsh. It didn’t intrigue me like the tense, thriller hook it was meant to be.

Seventeen-year-old Rainy (AKA Kat) is as street smart as a spymaster. How she picked up her “Artful Dodger” skills is not revealed, but her survival skills are required as her mental ill mother is raising her and her father is imprisoned. The protagonist is willful and has pluck; the author gives this character crass and brash language and behaviors to depict not her commonness as much as her lack of a good family and upbringing.

In this grisly, dark read, a young detective who also lost his mother to suicide at a young age befriends Rainy. Naturally, the detective, Blaine, doesn’t follow protocol and turn her over to CPS, which leaves her susceptible to her escaped father’s evil plans. Rainy is taken on a far-fetched journey by her kidnapper-father and his sidekicks. The trail of violence that ensues begets the book title. The unlikely relationship that Rainy develops with one of her “captors” as well as her freedom to contact Blaine while being held against her will was too implausible.

I was in the mood for a “gripping sexy thriller”, so I had high hopes for Blood Highway. The premise hooked me and it is action-packed, but the story didn’t satisfy me.

She's surviving on her own. She goes to school, pretends to be a waitress so she can eat other peoples leftovers, does a little pocket pickin', anything to keep from bothering her crazy mother. Then she comes home and finds her mother has committed suicide...

Algonquin Books and Net Galley let me read this book for review (thank you). It has been published.

She finds out her father has been released from prison and that's why her mother killed herself. She'd told her he was dead, so this is quite a surprise. It's even more of a surprise when he shows up and carts her off with him. She goes with him so he doesn't hurt the cop that has befriended her.

She finds out he intends to ask her where the money from the last robbery is hidden. She knows nothing about the money.

The farther she goes with him, the meaner he gets. He kills two teenagers. He shoots her friendly cop. He even shoots his partner. It's not looking good for her, but she doesn't give up.

Who's going to win, Daddy or the daughter?

**3.5 stars**

Typically I don't read a lot of thrillers so I never know what to expect when I start one. I was really intrigued after reading the synopsis and was excited to see how the story would play out. Unfortunately, Blood Highway had a bad case of giving away too much of the plot in the description. If so much of the story hadn't been revealed before I even started reading it could've had a stronger impact.

It took me a while to get into this story. The beginning was really confusing and I'm still not completely sure I understood what was going on. We are following 17 year old Rainy as she does her best to deal with the crappy life she's been dealt. It's not clearly stated but it's hinted that her mother might have some type of mental illness. It has gotten so bad it's like Rainey doesn't exist to her mother. She's forced to lie and steal to take care of herself.

I'm not sure if Rainy, or any of the other characters that appeared were meant to be likable. Each were well rounded but they had so many flaws it was hard to feel connected to any of them. I didn't exactly like Rainy but I admired her tenacity, especially when it came to her survival. Throughout the story Rainy made some bad decisions but every step of the way I hoped she would succeed. Also, I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about Blaine but I quickly grew to like him. I've never felt so conflicted about a set of character but I was happy Rainy and Blaine were able to be there for each other.

Blood Highway was such a dark, twisted story. It took me a while to wrap my head around some of the things that happened. Some of what happened still makes me feel wrong and violated. There was so much build up throughout the majority of the story and I didn't like the way it ended so suddenly. It left me feeling really unsatisfied with the ending. This was an intriguing and sometimes unsettling story but there was too much that felt missing for me to enjoy it more.


Trigger warnings for abduction, extreme violence, drug use, suicide, child neglect.

This is the first book I've read by Gina Wohlsdorf so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. One word to describe this book - disturbing. There were several scenes that were really dark and boathered me. This book just wasn't the book for me. I've had this for a couple of months now and found that I could only read a little bit at a time; I had a really hard time getting through this one.

Thank you #netgalley and #Algonquin Books for this eARC. This is my honest review and opinion.

The title of Gina Wohlsdorf’s second novel “Blood Highway” is certainly an apt one. With a difficult home life, seventeen-year-old Rainy Cain has developed clever and necessary survival skills. (I’m curious how Wohlsdorf learned about these survival skills - not from personal experience I hope!) Rainy has never known her father, her mother is mentally ill, and when she dies Rainy believes she’s on her own. Then her father shows up after escaping from prison and kidnaps Rainy. Their cross-country odyssey is indeed a bloody one, with car crashes, murders, explosions, and robberies.

This is an intense and at times uncomfortable book to read, but Rainy is a compelling character and the thrilling pace never lets up.

My review was posted on Goodreads on 8/20/18

Rainy is forced onto Blood Highway in this unique kidnapping thriller.

Rainy has a tough life. Her mom is paranoid at best and legally insane at worst. Her father is completely missing from her life. To support herself, she pretends to be a server and bags delicious leftovers for herself. She snatches up unclaimed drinks from Starbucks and picks pockets for cash. She is also a senior in high school.

After finding her mother dead by suicide, Rainy meets policeman Blaine. Rainy and Blaine have a lot in common. When Rainy’s dad escapes from prison and takes her on a cross-country road trip, only Blaine can save Rainy from her father’s wrath.

Blood Highway is a propulsive thriller where the tension never lets up. Before beginning this compulsive read make sure you clear your calendar as you won’t want to stop until the surprising conclusion. 4 stars!

Thanks to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

Rainy Cain was more or less a normal teenage girl being raised by a single mother and dreaming of more to come until the day her world fell apart. Returning home Rainy immediately knew things were a bit off in the house but as she went to investigate she never expected to find her mother having committed suicide.

When calling for help Rainy finds herself with a young detective that helps her through the shock and loss of her mother. Shortly after though a man named Sam kidnaps Rainy away claiming to be her long lost father who Rainy had thought had died before she was gone. It turns out Sam has gotten out of prison and come for Rainy thinking she knows something her mother had been hiding from Sam.

Blood Highway by Gina Wohlsdorf is one of those thrillers that I’m just going to jump right in and get the content warning out of the way first. There’s a few triggers in this one obviously with starting out with a suicide but also along with the kidnapping we have more dark content in rape and murder with some content even making me cringe and that’s saying a lot.

Having read Security by Gina Wohlsdorf I had an idea of what to expect with the writing and that would be a fast paced over the top kind of read which is what I did find. There were some things in this one though that confused me a little and with some things being a bit much for my taste I didn’t quite love this one but it’s definitely one action packed read that some might love.

I received a copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Great thriller from the author of Security. Draws you in from the beginning and doesn’t let go! Worthwhile read.