Review: Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia

Holy moly. Poughkeepsie by Debra Anastasia took me forever to read. Normally that does not bode well for a book, but in this case, that wasn’t the issue. This book just felt very long, despite it’s page count. But it was a beautiful, unique story with so much that happened it felt like 3 books in one. (I was on a very active vacation while reading this so did not have free time to devote to reading non-stop; so that may have been part of the problem.) This book was given to me by the author for review.

Livia takes the train to her classes every day. She is a sweet friendly young lady who smiles at everyone at the train station, including Blake, the homeless man who resides there. Blake sees that she is one of the only ones who sees HIM, and not a hobo. When some teenagers try to commit an act of violence against Blake, Livia steps in and defends him, and a romance begins.

Blake has had a rough past in foster homes, but has formed a bond with 2 of his foster brothers that is amazingly strong. Beckett, a career criminal, runs the Poughkeepsie crime scene, and Cole has devoted his life to God and works at a church.

Livia’s dad is a police Chief and her sister, Kyle, has a ton of issues resulting from their mom’s leaving right when she was born. See what’s going on here? A TON of characters, and I am just scratching the surface. There is also trained killer Eve, Livia’s asswad fiancé Chris, and the always knitting Mouse.

Kyle was funny as hell, despite her issues. She had some of the best lines in the book.

“Holy fucking dogs! You scared the uterus out of me!” – Kyle

Still peeing…still peeing…Oh GOD, I’m bladdertastic!” – Kyle

“Correction- my pussy smells like a monkey that got fucked by a dirty gorilla. Did I shower last night?” – Kyle

You can’t help but fall in love with Blake. Despite being homeless, he is proud, extremely well-mannered and will accept nothing he didn’t earn. He is also loving and grateful for everything, loyal, protective, gentle and romantic.

“Livia, you make the rest of the beautiful things in the world cry for even trying at all. You make it hard for me to breathe.” – Blake

This book was so chock full of great characters and story that I don’t even know how to review it. Each character had their own story. There was love, murder, romance, excitement, psychology, revenge, heartbreak and more love. I laughed, I cried, and fell in love with almost all of the characters.

Likes:

Learning each brothers’ back story
Kyle’s sense of humor
The strong love and devotion the brothers feel.
Every one of the characters (except Chris and his friends).
That we learn each character’s background and what makes them who they are today.

Dislikes:

There was so many stories going on at once that it didn’t give me that “I can’t put it down” feel.
Chris was a little too much of an ass for Livia to not have noticed before.

Rating: 4 stars and 3 for heat

This was a very long book, though not in page length. There was just so much going on, so many lives intertwining in crazy ways. It was unique, beautiful, touching, romantic, violent, heart wrenching and eye-opening all at once. It showed how people are not what they seem, or what they think they are, and sometimes it just takes another to bring it out of them.

*Note: I read that this was another twilight fanfic originally, just like Fifty Shades of Grey. I don’t see the similarities unless I try really hard to connect them.

Purchase: Poughkeepsie at Amazon || BN.com || iBooks