Kaleidoscope Hearts by Claire Contreras // A Toxic Romance

Kaleidoscope Hearts (Hearts, #1) by Claire Contreras
Genres: Contemporary, NA
Pages: 300
Goodreads

He was my older brother's best friend. He was never supposed to be mine. I thought we would get it out of our system and move on. 
One of us did. One of us left. 
Now he’s back, looking at me like he wants to devour me. And all those feelings I’d turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me. He broke my heart last time. This time he'll obliterate it.
This is a standalone.

Pre-Warning*: This book, to me, contains aspects of a toxic, possessive, & abusive relationship.

*I will be including this section in reviews of books that I think contain sensitive material that may be upsetting to some so you can decide whether to continue reading.

Kaleidoscope Hearts is a book that relies on the romance. That is what the novel is. So, I don’t know how I really feel about this because I was a little iffy on it.

It’s a second-chance and a forbidden romance. It’s a “brother’s best friend” romance. Which, alright, isn’t terrible, but when I factor in the ages of all the characters, I found it to be a little ridiculous. Personally, the ‘brother’s best friend’ trope doesn’t work when you’re all 30-years-old and are free to do what you want.

So when the entire book uses Elle’s brother as the crutch for why their relationship never worked, I l laughed, because that’s not even close to why I think it never worked. Which brings me to my next point:

Elle is a broken woman. Her fiancée died and she has been in mourning for a year. This fact alone should have made her a character I felt empathy for, but she wasn’t. She seemed overly dramatic. She spent most of her time when she was younger being promiscuous with Oliver, but they never made any commitment to each other. Yet, she seemed to have lashed out after he left for medical school by getting engaged to someone else.

On top of that, Oliver just seemed like a guy that wanted what he couldn’t have. He liked the chase but had no problem chasing other girls in the meantime. He was also very aggressive and possessive with someone who wasn’t even his.  I did not like his character.

To add insult to injury, a random plot point was added in that seemed like a last-minute thought to make Elle feel better about moving on from her deceased fiancée — he was somewhat controlling. So, why then, does she go to Oliver, who is almost as aggressive just about different things?

The writing wasn’t terrible or wonderful. Nothing stood out too much to me except that it was way more sexual than I thought it was going to be. It was almost like when I read 50 Shades of Grey with a sex scene every few pages (but without the BDSM). That became a little distracting. I understand it is a New Adult, but that doesn’t mean it has to have so much sexual tension between the two characters.

If you’re looking for a quick kind of sexy read, try this one out. However, it doesn’t have great characters and the plot is a little thin. That’s really all I can say to round out my thoughts on this one.

Rating Report
Plot
Characters
Writing
World Building
Overall:	2.5 / 5