REVIEW: Thoughtless (Thoughtless #1) by S.C. Stephens

Title/Series: Thoughtless | Thoughtless #1
Author: S.C. Stephens
Published: June 11th 2011
Genre: NA, Contemporary, Romance
Format: Paperback | Pages: 530
Source: Amazon
★★★✩ (3.5/5) Stars

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Kellan's Facebook ;)

For almost two years now, Kiera's boyfriend, Denny, has been everything she's ever wanted: loving, tender and endlessly devoted to her. When they head off to a new city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen obligation forces the happy couple apart.

Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source—a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he's purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes...and none of them will ever be the same.

This book should have a warning label. "Warning: May be hazardous to your health and sanity!" I'm putting a warning label on this review...may include bouts of cursing and rambling nonsense. We'll see how it goes I guess.

I want nothing more, than for the ground to open up and swallow Kiera Allen to the deepest, darkest, most fiery depths of hell for all eternity.

I don't know how better to sum up my thoughts upon completion of this book except for that sentence.

With the loss of being able to blog every day, my reading habits have been vastly different from my "normal" lately. I've been taking advantage of this sort of freedom and was reading a LOT of epic fantasy and historical romance. Such a weird combo I know. But I've also missed my angsty contemporary NA/YA. The other night as I walked over to my bookshelves to turn off the light switch right next to them, Thoughtless jumped out at me. I bought the series so long ago but they've just been sitting there because....well...I was scared. See on just about every blog I visited, every review I read about this series, the consensus was strong about 2 specific points. 

First: Kellan Kyle was a rock god. 

Wait did that say rock god?! You have my attention...

Second: Kiera was a horrible, horrible person. 

Sigh...great....

But instead of turning off the light and getting some sleep, like I should have done, tired as I was. I left it on and instead dropped my hand a few inches and grabbed Thoughtless. Next thing I knew it was hours later, I was 130 something pages in, and my alarm clock was screaming at me that it was time to wake up. How did that happen??  But I wasn't ready to face the day...at all. My heart was in turmoil. Kellan was already broken by this point, therefore so was my heart. Denny, sweet wonderful Denny, deserved everything good and wonderful this world could offer and instead, what he did have...just wasn't fair! He had 2 people who supposedly loved him, lying, sneaking and hiding the most horrid things from him and I was so angry! My heart ached for Denny. It still does. And then there was Kiera. Well she had no sympathy, no understanding and most certainly no respect from me. Really, just go back to my opening sentence. That's how I felt. I certainly wasn't ready to put the book down and face the world.

Even knowing what I was getting myself into beforehand, this has been a difficult read. Not the hardest by any means...but difficult. You can't honestly prepare for it. I feel like I need years of therapy and this is only book 1. And I don't know what sickens me more; Kiera and the way she selfishly screwed with these guys or the fact that I couldn't stop reading if I tried. I was consumed and lost sleep. Twice!  Every time I'd think things that happened couldn't get any worse, leave it to good old Kiera to say "Ha! Try this one out." Seriously! I use these Post-it strips as I'm reading to mark areas I want to remember come review time for various reasons and not long into the book it got to the point where I was slapping them onto the pages. Viciously!! And I went through TWO things of strips on this book alone!! That never happens.

Really Kiera doesn't start out that bad. So at first I was wondering what on earth everyone was going on about. Trust me that didn't last long. I don't think in reality or fiction I have ever come across someone so selfish and vile. I kept getting mad at myself every time I wanted her to fix things...it didn't matter which one I just wanted her to step up and stop the madness. I'm still not even sure how I feel about her after the end of this one. There's a semblance of peace at the end of the final chapter, but with two other books sitting on my shelf, equally as thick, I know the turmoil isn't over and frankly that scares the hell out of me.

I gaped at him, disbelieving. He thought he was being selfish? Here, I was the one literally shuffling between the beds of two men, and he was selfish?

I was almost as angry at Kellan through this whole book as I was with Kiera. It was really hard though to be truly angry with him. Kellan has had a shit, shit life. So in a way I get it. There's really no way to explain so that you'd understand without saying anything spoilery, even in the smallest way. You'd have to read and know him to understand. Here he was experiencing emotions he'd never felt before...ever, and it royally fucked up his judgement. He honestly tried to do the right thing on more then one occasion. Leave it to Kiera though to get in his head and throw all his good intentions out the window. He was wrong, yes. I'm not justifying him at all. I just get it and I care for him. I think he deserves something good in his life...even if it's with...Kiera.

"I want to be the kind of man you deserve to have."

Denny is like...the perfect guy you know? While I do love and adore Kellan in so many ways, most of the time I was thinking to myself 'How can you have someone like Denny and ruin it?'  He was so sweet and loving and did things for Kiera that most guys just would not do. He gave up so much and she treated him like crap. Every scene he was in my heart would snap and I'd cringe both from wanting him to find out and knowing how broken he'd be once he did. Sigh. He's why this book has been so hard to read. He's just that good of a person.

His voice was shaky, his accent thick with emotion, and I knew he was close to tears. He choked as he whispered, "Baby...you're my heart."

The only reason I finished this one and will read the other 2 is because...well okay there's 2 reasons first: I already bought all 3, physical copies even...sigh. And second: I really need to know that Kellan and Denny get some kind of closure and happiness. It's going to kill me I know it will because I can't honestly see how there's a single thing Kiera can do to change my mind about her. But I'm determined. I definitely need to take a break between though. I'm not sure I can jump back into this series quite yet.

Would I recommend this book? Yes and no. It's not going to be for everyone and it really fucks with your heart and your emotions. I still don't know how I made it through, my heart, somewhat, intact. Do I regret reading it? Believe it or not...no. Take what you will from that. I really thought I'd curse more...huh...