REVIEW: Blurred by Kim Karr

“Life presents choices at every curve and it’s the choices we make that pave the way for our future.”

Ben Covington – the man most readers of the Connected series see as the bad guy; the one whose choices hurt a lot of people and ended up destroying any chance he had for a future with Dahlia, and while we can all agree that the way he handled things when he came back from the dead wasn’t his most shining moment, without his perspective and insights, Ben doesn’t stand a chance to redeem himself. He’ll always be the anti-hero – the man who doesn’t deserve his own happy ending. So, in order for readers to give Ben a fighting chance at redemption, Kim Karr gives us Blurred – a novella that allows readers to understand the reasons behind his actions and provides the back story of those choices that set everything in motion, and maybe, just maybe, introduces the woman who can mend his frayed heart.

In my opinion, Blurred is not a simple retelling of the first two books from Ben’s POV. It’s more of an explanation of what led to one of the hardest decisions of his life and an illustration of the self destruction that occurred after he lost Dahlia and his mother. It also provides both past and present glimpses of his time with Belle Wilde that helps lead into their full story – the one that will be told in Frayed.

Blurred is not a love story in the traditional sense unless it refers to Ben’s ability to love himself. Ben is stripped bare in this story; his vices, his temptations, his flaws, and his demons are all exposed, and in the beginning, he is losing his fight against them all, but then he slowly starts to fight back, knowing that he needs to get himself together and find a way through the darkness…find a way to live without Dahlia, without his mother, and without the life he thought he was meant to have. It’s not an easy fight, and some parts are not easy to read, but Blurred is Ben’s side, and nothing should be sugar coated because it would only diminish what he accomplishes once he gets himself together and finds the clear path in front of him – the one he’s meant to live not the one he should have. At the end of Blurred, Ben’s not quite there, but looking back at where he’s been, he’ll get there; it will just take a bit more time because coming back from the dead, facing a life without the woman you love, and redeeming yourself in not only the eyes of others but of your own as well shouldn’t be quick and easy, and by hearing Ben’s side, readers know that it wasn’t and that it won’t be for quite some time.

Even after finishing Blurred, I’m still unsure of how I truly feel about Ben, but the way he tells his story so honestly made him grow on me…made me want him have the chance to heal his heart and find a girl who could make that happen. Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t they? I guess it just depends on how Ben chooses to use this opportunity that will help me to truly define how I feel about him. But I can tell you one thing, it says something about Kim Karr’s writing and character development when she has readers rethink their impressions of Ben Covington.

Everyone deserves his/her story to be told – the truth is not always black and white and one-sided stories definitely don’t fill in all of the puzzle pieces. Frayed provides readers with a completed version of what happened, and it forces us to take a look inside the heart and mind of a man whose explanation may not appease everyone, but it’s real, raw, and honest. Ben took the blurred pieces of his life and gave them clarity and now is headed, hopefully, towards a resolution he can live with; readers will now have to decide if that’s enough for them to see past everything that’s happened and allow his story to be finished in Frayed.

A complimentary copy was provided by the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 poison apples