Lotus by Jennifer Hartmann

💀 Playlist from the book 💀

“There is beauty to be found everywhere…even in the things that scare us.”

★ – 5/5

🌶️- 3/5

Content Warning

Long-term abduction and childhood sexual assault

Blurb

“All these years, I’ve never given my heart to anyone…

The truth is, I didn’t have a heart to give.

My heart was with a ghost.”

To the rest of the world, he was the little boy who went missing on the Fourth of July. But to Sydney Neville, he was everything. Her heart hasn’t been the same since her best friend disappeared, but she’s learned to build her life around that missing piece.

Twenty-two years later, the last thing Sydney expects is for Oliver Lynch to return. Having been captive underground for decades, he’s unfamiliar with the strange new world that awaits him—but he’s alive. He’s here. And no matter how he’s changed, he and Sydney both still feel the connection that runs between them.

But as their reborn friendship begins to feel like something more, Sydney and Oliver realize there are still jagged, painful truths creating space between them. The walls Sydney’s built don’t want to come down, and as Oliver hunts for his missing memories and lost time, he realizes his nightmare is not yet over.

With nothing as it seems, is there space for love to bloom in this dark place?

Read if you enjoy:

❥ Dual POV

❥ Childhood Friends to Lovers

❥ Slow Burn

❥ Angst

❥ Surprises

“Love is a paradox.”

Review

I was 10 pages in when I cried the first time. This book had me bawling my eyes out, it has me holding my breath and gasping out loud. It was intense, sad, beautiful, horrifying and I was unable to put the book down once I got started. I thought “Still Beating”, also by Jennifer Hartmann, was the book that broke me the most, but “Lotus” is now taking the lead.

I don’t know why we love to put ourselves through these emotions that doesn’t actually belong to us in a way. This book contains some of my biggest fears as a mother, and it was very triggering, but yet I kept reading and loved every moment of it.

“It’s hard to break someone who has already experienced the worst out of life. We tend to be fairly resilient.”

Oliver was kidnapped when he was eight years old, kept in a basement for twenty-two years, and escaped when his capturer left him no other option than to leave his shelter. Oliver enters a world he’s unfamiliar with, a world that has evolved while he’s been stuck in time. He’s clueless about a lot of things, his social skills are lacking and he’s having a hard time being around people at first. But all of that makes him incredible blunt, which made me laugh out loud several times. He’s so endearing and innocent, he enjoys the little things like watching the birds and breathing in the fresh air, things he wasn’t able to for two decades. He had a hard time connecting with his stepbrother at first, where he came to live after his release, but their bond grew strong during the book. Sydney was his childhood best friend, and there is still an intense connection between them, and it only grows more and more intense and their friendship turns into something complicated.

“You also only have two friends, and they’re both fake accounts.”
“They told me I had funds available in a deceased relative’s account that they would help me retrieve. It sounded promising.”
A sharp laugh hits me. “You didn’t even accept my friend request.”
“You weren’t offering me two million dollars.”

Sydney had been struggling during the last twenty-two years, built walls around her heart and kept everyone at arm’s length, but Oliver’s return is threating to crumble those walls. It scares Sydney, and she pushes back, not willing to let go of the safety those walls provide to her heart. But yet she’s still drawn to Oliver, and they spend a lot of time together, where Sydney helps him get familiar with everything he has missed over the years. She values their friendship more than anything else, and the fear of losing him again becomes the thing that might tear them apart.

The truth is, I didn’t have a heart to give. My heart was with a ghost.

This all sounds like just a story about two people, but this story involves a lot of people. Lifechanging secrets are revealed, truths about the people closest to them will make you gasp. Some things I had guessed as I was reading, while other things totally caught me by surprise and I was stunned. I cried so much, it was almost embarrassing. I know this will be a book that will return to my thoughts in the future, and it’s a book I’ll forever recommend.

“I’m right here, with you, and I’m still holding on to your heart. Please don’t ask me to give it back.”