Review: Out of CTRL by S.A. Welsh
Publisher: Totally Bound
Where did you get this book: E-Arc from Publisher
Release Date: Out Now
“Andrew had no intention of ever going back home. But circumstances force him to face his painful past and the friend who betrayed him.Andrew Finley has no intention of going back to his hometown—ever. After he gets caught hacking the CIA, he builds himself a new life as a computer guy for the very government agency he tried to hack. But over the past few months something has been bothering him, and his boss is acting more paranoid than usual. Every time an operation failed, Andrew collected information that could prove someone was selling secrets and now he’s pretty sure his boss is trying to kill him, so he has no choice but to go back home to buy some time. Going home may be more dangerous than facing his boss, though, considering his former best friend and first crush Teddy had betrayed him and let his evil sister and her minions send him running nine years ago.
But he’s back now and not everything is as clear-cut as he thought. Teddy may not be a Judas but can Andrew catch his fireman without getting burned, or is coming home going to kill him?One corrupt boss, one evil sister, enough family drama to fill a dozen daytime chat shows and an ex-best friend who he’s been in love with for half his life makes for one hell an interesting trip home.”
This one is a bit difficult to rate. Parts of it I enjoyed quite a bit but then there were parts that I had a hard time with and had me giving sections of this read a side-eye. I will say that enjoyed the writing a lot despite my issues with the plot. The story and
dialogue flowed really well for me and the majority of the characterizations worked well. Drew was quite sweet. I loved his nerdiness and how he loved his parents and two of his sisters. I’m saving one sister to talk about later. One of the things that I liked the most about him was how smart he was and how he managed to make a career out of his hacking. His brain was the hero here and I liked that. This would have worked better for me as two different stories. A thriller that followed his work shenanigans and reunion story that followed his family, they shouldn’t have ever crossed streams because things went from kinda believable to fairy tale in the blink of an eye.
I did enjoy Teddy the other MC and we get the final chapter in his POV which I was glad to see, I think we needed to be more in his brain. I do question why he’d wait around for Drew for almost ten years without trying to contact him. That just seemed far to passive a roll for him to take considering what we’re shown of his character.
Now to the evil sister. She is actually evil, verging on psychopathic. That was pretty disturbing to read. I’m not sure how anyone in this family survived without her staging their deaths for the insurance money. They’re quite lucky. Unfortunately, she seemed more like a two dimensional character when compared to all the others. I can’t even believe some of things that she pulled.
If this hadn’t delved into the shoot-em-up my rating would have been higher because I did really enjoy seeing Drew come back and clear things up with this family and his best friend. Seeing them reconnect was sweet and the chemistry stayed hot and strong from the flashbacks through to the present. Despite enjoying the MC’s and their relationship the plot and some the villain characters dragged this one down for me and I felt it got more and more outlandish.
I’m giving Out of CTRL a C-