TBT #25 - Review: Reclaiming Sand by A. Meredith Walters

★TBT #25★

A. Meredith Walters beautiful heart wrenching story, #ReclaimingtheSand is on this weeks #ThrowbackThrusday. I can’t tell you how much I LOVE THIS STORY. It stirred all sort of emotions in me. It made me sad, weepy, angry and mostly had me falling in love with both the MC’s.

Title: Reclaiming the Sand
Author: A. Meredith Walters
Series: Reclaiming the Sand #1
Genre: new adult, romance

Bully and victim. Tormenter and tormented. Villain and hero.

Ellie McCallum was a bully. No connection to anyone or anything. A sad and lonely existence for a young woman who had come to expect nothing more for herself. Her only happiness coming from making others miserable.

Particularly Freaky Flynn.

Flynn Hendrick lived a life completely disconnected even as he struggled to become something more than that boy with Asperger's. He was taunted and teased, bearing the brunt of systematic and calculated cruelty, ultimately culminating in a catastrophic turn of events that brought Ellie and Flynn’s worlds crashing down.

But then Flynn and Ellie grew up.

And moved on.

Until years later when their paths unexpectedly cross again and the bully and the freak are face to face once more.

When labels come to define you, finding yourself feels impossible. Particularly for two people disconnected from the world who inexplicably find a connection in each other.

And out of the wreckage of their tragic beginnings, an unlikely love story unfolds.

But a painful past doesn’t always want to let go. And old wounds are never truly healed…and sometimes the further you try to run from yourself the closer you come to who you really are.

Amazon US | Amazon UK

SANDY’S REVIEW

Reclaiming the Sand by A. Meredith Walters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“5 Second chance stars”

You will hate me.
You will love him.
I love him.
He has changed my world.



This quote got me so intrigued I had to dive in to know more about this bully and her victim. Yes! I hated Ellie for better part of this book for tormenting Flynn when they were in high school but when I got the insight of real Ellie, I sympathized for her.

Ellie had a rough life growing up, she was abandoned by her mother at the young age of six since then she was under foster care, despite taken by different foster homes she never felt loved or wanted. She grew up being strong, violent, temperamental and emotionally deranged. With the company of her shallow irresponsible friends she became an anti-social person seeking drugs, alcohol and meaningless sex to cover her remorse.

But there was one person who saw Ellie for what she was and not for what she became. And that’s Flynn Hendrick. Flynn recently moved to Wellston and enrolled in same school as Ellie and her friends. Flynn suffers from Asperger’s, which made him a potent target for bullying. But somehow Ellie couldn't resist the kindness in him, there’s a budding friendship between the two. Ellie finds herself in situation where she can’t express her true feeling about Flynn at the same time she didn't want her friends to know this side of her.

I hated everything what Ellie and her asshole friends did to Flynn, not once not twice but every fucking time they had to pick on him, call him names, make fun of him. I swear to god I so wanted to punch Stu, Dania, Shane and Ellie, especially Ellie for making his life miserable. Even then Flynn ALWAYS forgave her! Why?! because that’s how kind hearted he is, There is no shades of gray in his life it’s just black and white.

“He sees the beauty where others don’t.
He hears love when others only hear pain.
He gives me the strength to become the person I've been terrified to be.” 

Besides Ellie was the only friend he had, every time she bullied him he was confused and angry but later she would apologize and spend time with him and that’s enough to make him like her again. She never felt any kind of emotions for anyone, she spent most of her life shutting everyone. This growing bond between them terrifies her, she doesn't know how to deal with a new found emotion and soon she does something regretful that changes the course of their life and she ends up in juvie for very long time.

“My desperate need to feel wanted had twisted into something horrific.
And I had ended up hurting the one person I had wanted in my life.” 

Seven years after that incident she still blames him for the way her life was changed she becomes bitterer and stops caring all together but when their paths cross again she didn't want that embedded feeling to rise which always did when Flynn’s around. How long will she go without confronting her true feeling? Will she embrace this second chance life threw at her?

I can’t tell you how much I LOVE THIS STORY. It stirred all sort of emotions in me. It made me sad, weepy, angry and mostly had me falling in love with both the MC’s. Ellie has one hell of redeeming quality, even though life ill treated her and made her ruthless, she also set her life at right direction, evolved as a better person with growing passion and emotion. What can I say about ♥Flynn♥- an epitome of love, kindness and forgiveness, most sweetest and honest person I had a pleasure of meeting. Even after suffering so much of abuse and not having anyone to rely on, he emerges as strongest person. I love him for never losing hope, for his patience, his strength and for loving unconditionally.

“I know you’re sorry Ellie.
You weren't very nice to me.
You made me feel angry and sad and I cried a lot because of you.
But now you make me smile.
You laugh and I laugh and we have fun together.
You want to be with me and I want to be with you. We belong together.” 

Thank you A. Meredith Walters for writing this beautiful heart wrenching story of two socially awkward people coming together to find normalcy in their difference. Writing was explicit, it’s not easy to develop a bittersweet character like Ellie. She made me to both hate/love Ellie and to deliver emotions of that supremacy is praise worthy.

Rating clarification: I didn't give it '5 stars' initially because I thought the epilogue was too short and I’d expected an epic ending, I wanted more of Ellie and Flynn’s new beginning but now since I know there’s going to be a continuation of their story in Chasing the Tide I’m the happiest person in the world so this story gets a deserving 5 stars for making me an emotional wreck!!