Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  Starting Point

SERIES:  Turning Point #3

AUTHOR:  N.R. Walker

PUBLISHER:  Totally Bound

LENGTH:  264 pages

BLURB:  

After going past the point of no return and finally reaching breaking point, the only thing Matthew Elliott can do now is start over.

Matthew Elliott is a recovering man. As an ex-cop and ex-fighter, his new job teaching kids at the local community gym about drug awareness and self-defence, is a little bit of both. His new focus on helping street kids is helping him heal, and with Kira by his side, he’s making strides.

Brother and sister, Rueben and Claudia, are homeless kids and they’re very much alone. As they strike a chord with Matt, he does everything in his power to help them.

But when Ruby and Claude need more help than he bargained for, it stops being about work, and starts being about home.

The day he met Kira, Matt’s life changed direction, and it’s only now he realises that everything he’s been through was a lead up to this. It was never about endings. His life, his purpose, was just beginning.

REVIEW:  

Matt has learned his lesson about lies and self-destruction.  He has paid the price, lost his job, half of his hearing, and suffers intermittent bouts of vertigo–but he also now has Kira.  And they are finally happy, in love, and stable.  No one is waiting for the ax to fall; Kira no longer has to wait for that final hit that will break Matt into a thousand pieces.  Matt’s work with the Fight Club is helping people, helping the community and giving his friends a steady paycheck and a sense of purpose.  Life is looking up for the first time in a long time.  And oh, yeah, Kira is totally going to marry him.  Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but someday they are going to be everything he has ever wanted. A family. A home.

But Matt can’t fix the whole world.  Even when he tries his best to give the kids and grown-ups that come to the Fight Club a safe place, and hope.  And knowing that kids like Ruby and Claude are going hungry, and probably homeless, is something he is never going to be comfortable with.  All he has is a place to offer them, and the hope that they will take it.  But there are monsters lurking on the streets these two call home, ones that offer kids like Ruby a few bucks in exchange for their disposability.  And if the drugs they want him to run don’t kill the kid, the life he is flirting will, eventually.

This is supposed to be Matt and Kira’s new start, their new page, but they are finding that Ruby and Claude are writing new stories onto that page, ones they never expected.  Or know how to handle.

You know those shows that start out with like those sickening well-adjusted families? Where everything is in pastels and the dog is running around in the backyard while a couple stare lovingly into each other eyes over a cup of coffee?  And you know, you just know that any moment the camera is going to pan down to a dead body or something, because there is no way that everything is on the up and up with all this Disney/Hallmark goodness spread like frosting all over the place…

Yeah, that.

Ok, so there are not any serial-killers or sudden bloodbaths in this story.  But there was something about the beginning of this book–what with all the happy well-adjustedness of it all–that just screamed incoming heartbreak.  After all, N.R. Walker was hardly going to give us over two-hundred pages of happy-kitten-time fluff.  Not even after the number she pulled last time in Breaking Point.

Still, I’m glad to see that Matt has finally started to get his shit together.  And if Breaking Point was a clusterfuck of uncommunication, this is all about the talking and the honesty.  I half expected Matt to revert back to his more secretive assholic ways, what with his hearing problems and job loss–not to mention all his guilt issues–but no, he is finally starting to pull himself together.  I think it was just a weird feeling, to go from super-angst!Matt to this.  No bad…just weird.

My favorite part of this story has got to be Claude.  Even with my whole child-aversion, she was pretty awesome.  I think she was very well written, because you could tell she is totally a kid…but this is a kid who has been forced to grow up way sooner–and under way harsher conditions–than any child should.  And man, I love the way see and Kira bonded.  You can totally tell that Kira (and Matt) are trying their damndest not to get overly attached, but like a truck barreling down on you at 70mph, there is no way to avoid it.  And no way in hell it isn’t going to hurt.

And dear lord does Walker like to hurt us.  I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but for some reason it only made it worse.  It was like watching a movie based on some type of real-life tragedy.  You go in knowing happy endings are not going to happen, but you watch and you start to like the characters, and you’re sitting there hoping that they’ll pull a miracle out of the rabbit’s ass (or something), but no, what happens is the rabbit bites your hand, gives you rabies, and then fucks off while you start foaming at the mouth.

Um…anyways, all I am saying is that it sucked. Majorly.  The pain, not the story.  But maybe, sometime way, waaayyy in the future, it comes out ok.  And sometimes even great.

I’m pretty sure, but don’t quite quote me on this or anything, but it felt like this was the last book for Matt and Kira.  Not that I would be opposed to another, but the way it wrapped up seemed rather final.  Which I am ok with.  Because this story did a lot towards finally sticking them both in a place that is going forward.  Living their lives without all the shit that has gone down between, and to them.  This is, aptly so, their starting point.  Their relationship really feels solid, so much more so than in the last book, and I really enjoyed seeing them finally find a balance.

For the most part, this book was really enjoyable.  However the whole switch of pov at about 85% of the way thru the book, just felt odd.  For a majority of the story we had gotten only Matt’s side of things, and it really knocked the rhythm off, at least for me, when we were suddenly thrown into Kira’s head.  Mostly because they didn’t feel all that different, so I kept forgetting that this was Kira not Matt, and constantly having to remind myself was getting annoying.  I like that we got Kira’s side of things, I just wish that it had been happening for the whole book, not just sprung on us at the last moment.

Starting Point was a nice conclusion (maybe?) to Matt and Kira’s story.  It wrapped almost everything up, and what it left hanging was not so much questions, but a life that was still left to be lived.  Things will change, their family will change, but this is life.  A life they will lead without us, but still one I am glad to have been a part of.  For all the sorrow and pain they have all endured, I think they finally have a chance to be happy.  And if I don’t get a chance to see all of it–well, then at least I can imagine it for them.

RATING:  

BUY LINKS: Totally Bound