Photo Credits: Public Domain Pictures
Edited by Vaishali
Title: Zed
Author: M.V. Ellis Series: (Rough Ink #1) Genre/Themes: New Adult, Contemporary Romance Publisher: Hot Tree Publishing Year of Publication: 2019 Version: E-Book provided by Booksirens ISBN: 9781925853674 Review
“I started with the core idea of the five dots, but then I started to think about how everyone on the inside has a story that led them there. Together the piece is about how life is really a series of unexpected events—rolls of the dice, if you like—that converge to a point, like going to jail for whatever crime. I know for me, it was a few brutal rolls of those dice, and my life was never the same again."
‘Zed’ is a story fundamentally defined on the faceted life of a dolorous, passionate tattoo artist called Zed and his finding a way out of the monotonous cycle of self-aversion and self-directed antipathy he bears after an accident which tipped and snapped the uneasy balance of his promising life. Zed is now the owner of ‘SK:eTCH’ and through his natural tenacious propensity for hard work, and devotion for diligence and discipline Zed has come to a point in his life where he has control and regime to balance his pain. Zed has his art and his verve for boxing to lean on, both being encouraging charms on his lifeline in his bid for conservation.
‘Whoever was responsible for the cliche “blood is thicker than water” obviously hadn’t met my family, where money was thicker than everything…'
But pensive, masculine Zed is masking hurtful demons that are still a burden on his life and self to this day. On the outside Zed is a prickly, short-tempered, rude mass of man who is unapologetically surreptitious. On the inside Zed is living a cycle of self-ruin, a vandalism he is inflicting on himself because of a past that he lets provoke and judge him. He's so strong yet lined with a needy vulnerability. Strictly tied to his past with a loose sense of loyalty to his present life Zed hides his layers of tragedy for his own soul to bear and brace.
And Zed is very good at running…from himself, from his feelings and from happiness.
‘As she stared into my eyes, the challenge was clear. “Will you?” We both knew that if I did, I was walking head-long into exactly what she’d correctly identified that I didn’t want: Complication. Risk. Intimacy.'
After the son of successful business person Xander Cross drunkenly strolls into Zed’s tattoo parlour one day Zed is subjected to a rotating sequence of events that ring eerily similar to his own in a previous life. Call it a divine echo if you will of an emulation of Zed’s past. He makes the decision to show this rich, self-important teenager a lesson of principle. Xavier Cross is ungrateful, thankless and conceited but he is now paying off his debt to none other than Zed himself.
‘What if our lives had been a blank sheet for us to determine every movement, mark, and fork in the road?'
Though Xavier’s presence is most unwelcome, this meeting brings Octavia Douglas right into Zed’s shop and into his discreet life. A corporate lawyer, Octavia is intelligent, bold and a savvy woman who has been reduced to the status of babysitter to insubordinate Xavier. Much to her annoyance Octavia has no choice but to follow rules, and though she has a thick skin and a shrewd mind Octavia has found herself on a corresponding career path that drifts from her principles, holding her tongue, and compromising her morals. Her vocation has always been on the leading side of placation rather than personal wishes.
‘Except Octavia Douglas wasn’t prey. She had way too much agency to be lumped into the same category as a doe-eyed deer.'
Octavia was bred to be a high-baller, and she surely is but her desires have long since been overrun with the obligations to be the best and follow the best. Her righteous notions of justice just don’t seem to have any meaning among an occupation that severely lacks a moral compass at the best of times while she inadvertently supports an industry that profits from greed and negligence. Smooth sailing isn’t the way to go because her obligations are driving her to a path she doesn't want to descend into: the perverse injustice of the justice system.
‘My life had long since stopped being about choices and was more about a series of failures to say no.'
Zed and Octavia are the veritable example of opposites attract, but they also fall into the typical stereotyping of false perception at first encounter. They are both hard-headed, both incredibly stubborn but equally so very different in their respective traits of personality. Zed is a tangle of labyrinthine, exhausting feelings and frayed attachments (also emotionally stunted) but I should alternatively say no attachments, and Octavia is ballsy enough to overwrite Zed’s proclamations. She wants to pluck Zed’s feathers to get to the meat of the man behind the three letters of his name and his measured words.
‘She was like a pool shark only with an Ivy League education and a knockout smile, when she chose to grace people with its presence.'
Zed’s associations have solid limitations, Octavia’s nature is to break them down. Zed is a glutton for penalty, Octavia strives to show him that he is more than that. Zed is tightly wound and suspicious, Octavia loves to challenge him, push him, hoping to break his strong resolve and let himself live. Octavia’s drive to know more about Zed might be counter productive because her curiosity and challenge may be building a bigger wall between them. Together their brushes are a rhythm of exasperating friction and categorical attraction.
And Octavia doesn’t mind giving chase…
‘She returned her gaze to mine-challenging? Questioning? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I was in a world of trouble with this woman.’
With a lawyer’s instinct, need for the truth and inquisitive nature, Octavia can’t stop herself from attempting to deep-sea dive into Zed’s cloudy mess of a past, and he detests her attempts at trying to scrape past his life’s surface because his life’s regret and mistakes indeed belong to him and nobody else. Zed uses his false assumptions of Octavia to impel his purposeful detachment and though Zed’s art is the seam that stitches him together, so too does Octavia begin to grant him something other than pain.
‘Not my finest hour from a manners perspective, but Octavia Douglas seemed to bring out the worst in me.'
Octavia is persistent, drawn to Zed and his unusual ways, and as much regard as he gives to the way he lives his life Octavia is too special a woman for him to do anything but walk away from. Octavia plays the role of chaser, while Zed is a runaway, from his feelings, life, and most particularly Octavia.
‘It was funny how the conscious and unconscious minds worked - after years of sticking to my rules, I had sudden;y been busy justifying stepping outside them simply because i’d wanted Octavia Douglas so badly.'
‘Zed’ explores Zed’s character in progressive way and I think it’s safe to say that Zed is the star of the show. Love is a privilege, it’s an appreciation but it’s also a forgiveness for oneself, and these are all things Zed doesn’t believe he justifiably deserves, and as an extension there is no place and no privilege to earn such a valuable feeling for himself when he perceives damnation to be his prize. For Zed, making that change and decision to be with Octavia equates to forgiving himself, absolving himself of his horrid mistakes but also not giving himself the respect to understand that he isn’t his mistakes. It takes someone like Octavia to show him - that just like Xavier is striving for - Zed deserves more
“I’m moving forward with you because everything you think is so wrong about you is so right. Because you’re everything I thought i’d never wanted, hadn’t ever been looking for, but actually always needed.”
So here are my concerns with the story…
The pace of ‘zed’ was too slow for me until about halfway through. The story only really gets interesting a good portion after the halfway mark where the drama really started to show it’s face after the big plot twist! This story is predominantly a romantic drama but there was no other component of the story that presented gripping dissension other than the foibles of Zed’s and Octavia’s relationship. I can enjoy romance alone if it’s truly exciting and engrossing but I had no such feelings with this book which is a shame because I had high hopes! Perhaps if there were more angles to take advantage of and more to the story than the romance it would have done something for me. But saying that, I wasn’t taken with the way the romance did play out. The story to me felt uninteresting and colourless, a bit too uneventful for me. I was just waiting for something to happen.
“Let’s just say there’s nothing wrong with my hearing, so…did I mention I’m a lawyer?”
“Only a few hundred times.” “Yeah well, no isn’t a thing for us. No is just a speed bump on the road to yes.” Jesus. What have I done to deserve this.'
Even though there are layers to Zed and I felt for him, I felt detached from him and his plight. I know for sure that had I been in his position I most likely would have sunk as opposed to swum. He is arduous and strong in mentality and Octavia is too, but I couldn’t connect with either of these characters. I was lacking in attachment, focus and connection. I ultimately felt uninvolved and aloof when reading ‘Zed’. I personally wasn’t pulled into this story and into this conflict, almost like there was a smoke screen between me and this story.
‘Years of not rocking the boat, respecting and maintaining the status quo, living up to expectations that were so far from my own it was ridiculous. A lifetime of pretending to be someone I wasn’t.'
'Zed’ is the first book in the Rough Ink series by M.V. Ellis. I haven’t read this author’s work before, but I have read her bio which filled me with hope and joy that maybe we can all find our alpha hero someday! She’s living the dream! M.V. Ellis unreservedly believes in romance and loves what love itself can bring to our lives, so although I didn’t enjoy this story I believe in her enthusiasm and pursuit of rewarding, real romance.
“But hopefully in the end, the hard, messy, tricky, and annoying parts are outweighed by the amazing, fun, loving, beautiful parts."
What turns out as a chain of events that had taken Zed’s life on an unceremoniously distressing and irrevocable u-turn nine years ago, that push of fate also changed the course of a lawyer’s life by a simple throw of a set of dice. Call it divine intervention, call it serendipity, call it chance, fate but Zed knows plans are never written in stone but perhaps what’s written in the stars is worth waiting for because even though he may not believe in the preordained, it leads him to was bound to happen. As a man bathed in tragedy and whose action have affected so many people’s like the falling of dominos we learn about sacrifice, love and loyalty and how each play a role in Zed’s circumstances.
‘In reality, everything carried on just as it had been before, but it felt to me that everyone else in the bar was frozen in time and faded to black, while we were bathed in light.'
Memories flash, penetrating anguish simmers and absolute ruefulness are inescapable for this fine art aficionado. This tale circles the unheralded turns in life worthy of breaking but also reshaping people, taking them on courses unforseen but latterly rewarding. What showing love and support in any capacity can do for a person’s well-being, but also the perversion that neglect itself can breed in a growing mind. Set in Brooklyn, New York this story engages in the interracial relationship between Zed and Octavia, a relationship of opposites attract while tempting attraction but also stimulating friction at every turn. It’s one of second chances, recovery and the power of a good role model for the abandoned.
‘I had never been more aware of another person as I was of her in that moment. I stared back into her soulful light hazel eyes and held my breath.’
“Yes, you can call me Vivi.” I felt like she had handed me the keys to Fort Knox, Vatican City, and the White House all at once.’ ‘The truth was she’d had me at “Octavia Douglas.' I gave this book 2 stars -
If you managed to get through this literary equivalent of Mount Everest you have the patience of a saint, but you also may have an inclination for the art of masochism ;)
Thank you Booksirens and M.V. Ellis for offering me a free copy in exchange for a review!
Trigger Warning: Mentions of drinking, drug abuse and dealing
My Rating System:
★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read
THIS SECTION WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Queries/Concerns:
1) I know Zed is close to 30, but we don’t know Octavia’s age, so I had to take a guess and put her about mid 20s? But I’m still not sure 2) As much as I wanted to I wasn’t taken by this story including the supporting characters. 3) Zed could be too oblivious at times - which is kind of endearing but also slightly irritating - and Octavia could be too intrusive. But saying that I think it would only take someone like her to get him to share that which he usually wouldn’t. 4) The story had a very slow pace, and I was waiting for more action but only really got it 3/4 in 5) I’m not sure how to feel about the proposal? Though I suppose some anomalous endeavors serve to paint life a bit more creatively, Zed and Octavia have so much drama and relationship troubles to sort through that the proposal didn’t feel justified to me …I felt like there was so much to overcome and address to suddenly agree to marriage. 6) I found that there was little to no humour to balance the heavy topic of loss and hardship Things I liked: 1) The writing was incisive and smart 2) Representation of an Interracial relationship! 3) The exploration that life is indeed unexpected, and how it often takes a turn for the best as well as the worst. 4) Realistic setting and realistic situations
CategoriesAll Leave a comment and lets talk about 'Zed'
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
VaishaliBorn in the UK Archives
February 2024
Categories
All
2019 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 15 books toward
her goal of
30 books.
hide
2020 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
20 books.
hide
2021 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
10 books.
hide
2022 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
2023 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
DisclaimerAll images of book covers on this site belong to the authors and publishers of the books.
|