Review: Scars of My Past by DC Renee

My life was one of those teen angst rom-coms where the ugly high school student transforms herself into the beauty queen. Except there was no cute guy helping me along, no series of makeover shots with fun background music, no scene where I walked into the room and all heads turned to look at me while wind blew through my hair. I was the ugly high school student, and I did transform, but it wasn’t all peaches and cream.

Bullied so badly in high school that it ruined my life, I spent my senior year in therapy. It was there that I transformed – not just physically, but mentally as well. I wanted a fresh start and going to college across the country was my ticket to that. It was a whole new world, and things were great …

… and then came the blast from my past.

And he didn’t recognize me. What was a girl to do? Revenge, of course! My plan was to make him fall for me and then break his heart.

Sounds simple, right? Wrong. If only revenge was black and white … too bad a lot of gray was in the mix. But one thing was for sure – I needed a way to heal the scars from my past. I just hoped I could. 

4 stars
Review by Jen Skewes

This is my first book by this author and it will not be my last.  When I first read the blurb I knew this was something that I had to read.  If there is one thing that I love in a book it is a hero and heroine with a past that has left them broken, especially when it is the hero.  This book is one of those stories that will make you feel everything.  The pain, the hurt, the anger and frustration, but also the moments that will make your heart happy.

Gen had a good family life growing up but it was her high school years that caused her to suffer.  Being bullied so bad that you just didn’t want to go on any more.  But Gen survived that part of her past and it now trying to move on.  The past still haunts her, she still has reminders of what it did to her and how bad it affected her, but she is away at college and in a new town and trying to live her life.  She meets Cam, who is this gorgeous boy who seems to be there to save her whenever she needed saving.  But he looks oddly familiar to her.  He reminds her of the boy that tormented her through high school and made her life hell.  But at the same time he is nothing like him.  When she finds out who he really is she sets a plan in motion, to let him know what its like to be hurt.  Time goes on and Gen finds herself torn between the boy that she has become best friends with and the boy that put her through hell.  Can she go on with her plan or will she fall for the boy who she is supposed to hate?

I loved Cam.  He was a really good guy despite who he was in the past.  For a good portion of the book we see the past from Cam’s point of view.  We see what his childhood was like, the pain he went through and why he was that person who made Gen’s life miserable.  But it was seeing all of his past that made me understand so much of who he was.  He really was a sweet and caring person who was trying so hard to move on from his horrible past.  At times I felt so bad for him and my heart just hurt, from his past but also in the present.  The way he loved and cared for Gen just melted my heart. 

I loved Gen but at times she completely frustrated me.  Bullying is never right but I felt like she was so stuck in the past that she was so unwilling to see what was right in front of her in the present.  She was not willing to give it a chance and try to actually understand what happened, try to see what made Cam the kid he as back then. 

This is the story of two broken people who are still tormented from their pasts.  Despite trying to move on they are still living in the past, it is still affecting them today in a way that it makes it so hard to move on.  There is a very slow build up to that moment when the truth comes out.  At times I felt it was a little too slow for me but when it got to that point I was so engrossed in this story that I did not want to put the book down.  Ms. Renee threw a twist in there that I did not see coming and one that made me truly hurt for them.  I loved how everything came together, how the truth came out, the explanations of the past.  My heart broke over and over again from that moment on but Ms. Renee managed to piece it all back together.