Title: The Cellar

Author: Natasha Preston

Rating: 3/5

Synopsis:

“Lily?”

My stomach dropped as a tall, dark-haired man stepped into view. Had he been hiding between the trees?

“No. Sorry.” Gulping, I took a step back. “I’m not Lily.”

He shook his head, a satisfied grin on his face. “No. You are Lily.”

“I’m Summer. You have the wrong person.” You utter freak!

I could hear my pulse crashing in my ears. How stupid to give him my real name. He continued to stare at me, smiling. It made me feel sick.

“You are Lily,” he repeated.

Before I could blink, he threw his arms forward and grabbed me. I tried to shout, but he clasped his hand over my mouth, muffling my screams. My heart raced. I’m going to die.

For months Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her―and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect, pure flowers. His family. But flowers can’t survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out…

Review:

I have to admit, I am always a bit suspicious about these novels that are essentially published straight from stories published on Wattpad.  In my experience, they have always read as though they are just a collection of snippets pulled from the internet and the editing is never great.  However, even though the editing of this novel left much to be desired, and it was rather choppy, it was a nice vacation read.

Kidnapping novels are always a favorite of mine, and the concept of this story was right down my alley.  Just the fact that the kidnapper renamed his victims after flowers and tried to keep them pure by hiding them in his basement was enough to catch my eye.  It wasn’t like any other kidnapping novel I have read, but I was not pleased with the way the story was written.

Each chapter was from the perspective of either the kidnapper, Summer (the kidnapped) or her boyfriend.  Unfortunately, it was hard to distinguish the different voices apart as they sounded very much the same, and I did not care for the boyfriend’s chapters at all.  When reading those chapters I just wanted to get back to hearing about the kidnapper and the kidnapped.  Throughout the novel the boyfriend’s chapters were extremely slow, and the timing in the novel didn’t make since.  The first few chapters were drawn out, and then out of nowhere six months had gone by.  It seems as though Natasha Preston was very into writing the story in the beginning, but then just rushed through the end in order to get it finished and published faster.  The story was intriguing until the middle of the novel, and then it turned into a train wreck.  Out of nowhere a character died somewhere between the end chapter and the epilogue, and there was very little explanation for it.  It also didn’t make since how Summer spent her entire time wanting to escape, and then immediately ended up turning into the “flower” the kidnapper wanted her to be as soon as she was rescued.  If this change in her had occurred before the end of the novel it would have made more sense.  Overall, this novel was rushed and poorly structured which was a shame, because I was genuinely interested in the premise.

If you are not expecting this novel to be anything other than a collection of writings from the internet, then go ahead and go for it.  But don’t expect it to be a fine piece of literature, because that, it is not.

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