"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" by April Genevieve Tucholke

This was one of those out-of-the-blue picks, where I knew absolutely nothing about the book, which can be fun.  To be honest, I began reading it with kind of a "huh?" sense -- was this Gothic Romance, Horror, or something else?  Turns out it's Gothic Horror, kind of, and another one of those "on one hand, on the other hand" books.  On one hand, it's decently written.  Take this phrase, "Dawn was taking off its clothes, kicking up its pinks and purples on the horizon."  Most of the book isn't that lyric, but there is a flow to the text.  There is enough detail to "see" things and a nice tension/sense of creepiness throughout.  On the other hand, the description gets wieldy after a while -- every meal and every bit of clothing is described in great detail.  The allusions to "Wuthering Heights" and other literary influences isn't subtle, either.  They get referred to ... a lot.  In my mind, these references and the detail drags down the narrative.  I kept asking myself, "Do I need to know this in order for the story to be told?"  The answer, in most cases, is "no."  My biggest issue was with the arch of the book.  It builds well with a very good sense of anticipation, and the denoument also has nice rhythms and a poetry of a kind.  It was the actual peak of the action I didn't like.  The book goes from being somewhat PG (Violet gets naked with a boy but nothing really happens and the worst four letter word is "Da**") to being seriously R in the turn of a page.  There is blood, and more blood, and lots more blood, and an implied rape or two and then everything kind of goes back onto an even keel.  For me, the tone of the peak action didn't match the tone of the rest of the book.  Like a bad mystery, a critical element was left out, barely hinted at along the way, and then introduced at the important moment for no other reason than to spur a sequel.  There is also bad-boy lust, but when the bad boy is a serial killer, I started disliking our heroine. Ironically, a new TV show, "Lucifer" has similar characters, but, IMHO, they do it better.  Finally, on a minor point, another issue I had were the missing parents.  I know it's very YA to have MIA parents, but in this case, given some of the things that happen, you really have to push that "willing sense of disbelief" to its farthest edge.  In any case, this started out as a good book for those who like to be chilled without the gore, but then there is gore, so I really don't know what to say about it.  Happy reading ?!?!