Book Review – Rush by Emma Scott

RUSH (City Lights: New York City Book 3)
This one was just what the reader ordered!!! The pacing and the detail was such, that I felt as if I was living through her eyes (yet not bogged down with it). And OMG!!! I think this is the first book that has ever had me sobbing for joy… wonderful, relieving, exquisite, pure and unadulterated joy! I thank you Jillian for adamantly recommending it!

Jillian: Rush by Emma Scott is a must read!! Perfectly written and paced. Angry, bitter blind man and his personal assistant, a violinist who has been through heartache herself, struggle to accept their fates and ultimately their love for one another. I know it sounds depressing. But it’s real and beautiful and unique. Five plus stars!

Betty: I stayed up until 3am reading and I’m exhausted! I can’t wait to finish this book. Another win…

Lori: I loved Rush!!! so good

Tracie: This book was incredible

Chelli: Half way in…all the qualities I love in my book bf…hot, brooding, with a sweet side hiding in there!!

Linh: It was a perfect read!

Andrea: Just finished. Wow this book was good!

Holly: Just finished. Totally my kind of book! Loved it!

Natasha: This book was brilliant! 5 stars all the way!

Kandace: OMG.. it’s so good. I read it this weekend!

Karla: I read and love it!! Check out book one is amazing too!!

Gah YES!!!

And you know what cinched it for me, right from the start (aside from the amazing writing and the realistic inner dialogue)? This would make my #1 option in a specific “What to read after…” list.

“What to read after…” what, you ask?

I’m always concerned saying something like that, because I fear some authors don’t like to have their work compared to others, however… sometimes, certain books just have that “feel”, you know? But as readers, you know when you LOVE a book, and want to read more like it? You’re desperate to not only read more in that genre, but more with that style of writing, that kind of story? This is one of those. An undeniable “Me Before You” feel, but it eventually goes in a different direction. And yet even finding it’s own path, it still has that kind of intensity, and ethereal quality. The heartrending story that seems to fill your heart and uplift your soul.

So what’s it about?

Charlotte is a violin virtuoso that has just graduated from Julliard and is trying to fit into the “real world”. Devastated from the recent death of her beloved brother, she seems to have lost her music “mojo” and while she can play anything to perfection, that je ne said quoi that turns a technical musician into a work of art is suddenly missing from her music.

So she’s missing out on all sorts of auditions, and just trying to “find herself” again amidst the chaotic New York lifestyle, working as a waitress and a bartender. Renting in a tiny room in an apartment shared with multiple roommates, struggling to make ends meet, and feeling so lonely on top of it all.

The deep ache in my heart throbbed when reminded of what I’d had and lost, and it throbbed then, standing in the hallway of our tiny, overcrowded apartment.

It’s amazing how you can feel so lonely without ever being alone.

But eventually she waits on “Lucien” (a lawyer and family friend of an extremely wealthy family) that sees a quality in her (patience and compassion) that he wishes for “Noah” in his next assistant.

I require— Noah requires— someone with tenacity and compassion, who is able to see through the rough veneer to the suffering young man beneath. Someone who will treat Noah with kindness despite the fact that he might never return a fraction of the same courtesy to you.”

“He won’t? What’s wrong with him? Besides the blindness, I mean.”

“The accident stole more than Noah’s sight. It stripped him of all of the joy and happiness he’d possessed from doing what he loved most, leaving bitterness and anger behind.” Lucien leaned forward in earnest. “He is suffering, Miss Conroy, and I fear that unless he can begin to find acceptance, that suffering will consume him, and the vibrant young man I knew will be lost.”

Noah was once a virtuoso of sorts, himself. A thrill-seeker/daredevil writing for a magazine, and living life to the fullest. Until he has an accident that nearly kills him. He survives, but has lost his sight, and lives as a recluse in his NY townhouse, wishing he had just died in the first place. After all, he has lost everything he has ever enjoyed, struggling to function in his perpetual darkness, often in agony…

I couldn’t lose track of those meds. They were the only things that kept the Monster asleep.

…and he is slowly dying inside.

I listened to New York wake up outside the walls of this house, from inside my prison of black. The city was right outside the door and yet it seemed so far away. Another world. A world of color and light and yellow cabs and red brick, and I was trapped in this well of darkness, only able to remember, but never know it again. I choked down a scream, and then slept, diving into oblivion.

Oh God I just couldn’t imagine. I felt like I was suffocating along with him.

Lucien warns her… this will NOT be easy. Knowing his reputation, having delivered food to his address in the past, she knows what to expect…

“Just leave it on the counter.”

If bitter had a sound it was that voice.

I set the stack of boxes on the kitchen counter beside the rest. I knew the bill had already been paid, but did it include gratuity? Normally, I would have just left it to fate or luck, but I needed every dollar I could get.

“Okay,” I called. “Um, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah, you can get the f**k out.”

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks— a rush of both anger and humiliation. I shouldn’t have let it; I worked in customer service after all, but it still stung a little. Not to mention, it was kind of a shock to hear that sort of talk in such an elegant house.

“Pr*ck,” I muttered under my breath. I thumped heavily down the stairs, threw open the door and let it slam shut on its own.

 *Ooooooh I loved how promising this scene was!!!!*

…but the pay and the living arrangements are just to great to pass up.

And it was wonderful!! We get the story of two lost souls, scarred for different reasons, simply trying to find themselves again… and find each other in the process. *sigh* Pure sweetness, but not sticky-sweet. Well… no. It gets sticky. 😛 Tee hee!!!!

While I’ll say that I loved this one almost as much as “Me Before You” (or maybe as much, but in a different way 😉  – you’ll see), I just wish there had been a little more of his grumpy, moody, resistant reclusiveness in the beginning. He was brilliant in his sarcasm and his defiance (even defying himself). In his hatred of his life as it was now. His hurt and his pain. His sense of absolute loss, and worthlessness was poignant, and I ached with, and for him.

Yet as mean as it makes me sound, I just wanted MORE of that… a little more time to indulge in his pain and in her struggles to help him and eventually connect with him. I just love that kind of “push-pull”. That friendship-in-the making only to be shattered time and time again with reluctance and downright hostility. Bad days make the good days that much sweeter, in these books. And while the moodiness was adequate for us to get the “feel”, there could have been more of it for me to delight and bask in her strife, for awhile.  Yes… I like the anguish! Book anguish, that is.

I’d say he relented, and opened up a little quicker than I expected considering the absolute devastating effects the accident had on his life (he pretty much lost… everything that mattered to him), but still… the last quarter of it had me clutching my chest, with big fat tears plopping down my face onto my pajama top. Yep. Always in pajamas. I’m like a female Hugh Hefner. Er… wait.  No. No!!!  I’m TOTALLY not. LOL!!!! Just the pjs. *snort* Tee hee!!!!

All that to say…

Brilliantly written and a must read! It was profound, poignant, playful and poetic. All of my favorite book things! And if you like the same kind of books I do, then these are your favorite book-things, too! 😀

4.5 stars!