RELEASE DAY REVIEW: Never Let Me Go – Inevitably You – Lyla Dane

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"Beck was as good as they came. A blond-haired, blue-eyed angel on Earth... and I was the devil."

Beck Bowman was once my best friend in the entire world. No one compared to the kind and gentle boy who stole my heart when we were kids. But that was a lifetime ago, before our friendship was torn to pieces and I became a spiteful, rotten shell of a person. Now he can’t stand the sight of me, and all I want to do is avoid the contempt in his eyes—except that’s impossible when we go to the same college and wrestle on the same team.

But he can’t hate me more than I hate myself.

Hate my own cowardice and vicious anger.

Hate that I’m so afraid of my dad I’m willing to destroy myself.

There isn’t much left of me anymore, and the parts of me that Beck once loved are buried so deep I’m sure they’re lost forever.

After I make the worst mistake of my life in my senior year, I’m ready to give up. I’ve destroyed everything, everyone despises me, and I’m drowning in regrets. For two years, I’m intent on forgetting I even exist—until Beck finds me one night and tries to save me. He’s still the perfect golden boy he’s always been, the do-good hero that needs to fix everything around him. He’s convinced he can help me, and no matter how hard I fight him, he refuses to give up on me. I hope he never does, but Beck is everything I don’t deserve and can’t allow myself to have.

How could anyone ever love a monster like me?

From the age of six Beck Bowman and Gavin Forster were best friends, a friendship that ended when they were fourteen. At the age of fourteen Gavin’s father caught them about to kiss and from then on, they became enemies. What happened to Gavin at the hands of his father would set the tone for years to come.

On the same wrestling team together in college Gavin showed nothing but hate for Beck and all the other team members around him. He knew Beck was gay and didn’t hide his hate for those who were like him. It was Gavin’s father who hated that his son wrestled grabbing on to men was a sign of gayness and when Beck kept beating Gavin his father suggested he begin using steroids to build his body up.

What started out as once a week turned into once a day and then three times a day changing Gavin into a monster that eventually caused him a place on the wrestling team and a fight that put him in jail for six months. His attack was of course, caught on tape and all-over social media just made Gavin a social outcast.

All his life Gavin feared his father’s threats that he would throw him out and he would be all alone, so Gavin gave into his demands. But losing a place on the team and being thrown out of the college housing just made his father’s threats a reality. Gavin was alone living in a homeless shelter until Beck found him beaten and naked hiding in a holly bush.

Beck lived with his stepsister Anya owned part of an MMA gym and was living a peaceful and successful life until he found Gavin, naked and beaten. Although he thought twice about bringing Gavin to his home, he couldn’t live with the fact that if anything happened to him, he would forever feel responsible.

Being in Beck’s home did not make Gavin any less hostile and he fought Beck tooth and nail. Fighting just hurt his foot, and a hospital visit just ensured that he would have to stay with Beck for at least two weeks.

Gavin was a damaged young man thanks to his father and that damage just kept reasserting itself in cursing and fighting. Beck was determined to help despite Gavin’s resistance. Beck’s sister Anya also tried to embrace Gavin, but it was just ignored.

I have read many books that concerned abuse of drugs and by a parent, but this book just put an actual focus on the results of that abuse and the lasting effects on a person. Gavin suffered for years scarred in more ways than one. It was a story that grabbed ahold of me and wouldn’t let go till the end of the book.

Sex, secrets and a major betrayal by someone who should love not hate.