Painted Blind Review

Title: Painted Blind

Author: Michelle A. Hansen

Release Date: May 3rd 2012

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Seventeen years old and agoraphobic, Psyche Middleton vows her dad will never see the risqué photos she took during a summer modeling stint abroad, but one of them ends up on a billboard in her Montana hometown. Now everyone—especially her dad—can see it.  And yet, somehow, those are the mundane things in her life because she is about to fall unexpectedly, head-over-heels in love with Erik, a mysterious young man who rescues her from a crowd of admirers, and who she’s never actually seen because…he can make himself invisible. 

As strange as this may seem, it’s about to get even stranger. Erik takes her to his palace in an idyllic kingdom, and she is swept into the beauty and culture of his world, but his affection has one condition:  she may not see him.  Overtaken, intrigued, and still not wholeheartedly believing he’s real, Psyche is going to have to decide if she can love him blindly; because if she can’t, she may lose him forever.

This books was given to me via Netgalley by the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thank you, Createspace.

 I felt the breath slipping out of me. My chest constricted. I tried to scream, but nothing came out. Strong arms grabbed me from behind. I fought hard. I was not going to be dragged into some frat house.

“Don’t be afraid,“ a voice murmured in my ear. “I’ll get you out of here.”

I saw the sleeves of black leather jacket and a hand that bore a single gold band around the first finger.

Then we disappeared.

This book had its pros and cons, but all in all I liked it. It's definitely directed to a younger audience, but if you like myths, fairy tales and re-tellings like I do, "Painted Blind" is probably something you'd enjoy as an adult as well.

It's based on the myth of Eros and Psyche. There are some twists and turns to the story and it has a contemporary touch too. Erik was probably the number one character I liked, I also enjoyed Aseas, Titus and Psyche's Dad. They were all a delight to read about. I, quite honestly, hated Samatha, Psyche's best friend, from the very start and I cannot say I was suprised by her little betrayal. Got to say 'I told you so!' to the book while grinning. Heh.. I like when I can guess some elements, but not the whole story. That sucks. Well, with re-tellings you probably know the general idea, but it's nice to see some suprising twists in the plot.

All right, so it had some very cool fantasy elements and I absolutely fell in love with Erik's kingdom. It was stunning! There are two worlds combined in this book - our modern mortal world and an ancient immortal world. I liked that the immortals I read about stuck to their rules, but adopted things and behavior manners from our era as well. They're all very educated and a bit michevious, may I add. Which I loved! Always great to have some tricks up your sleeve.

I loved the romance - it was sweetly delicious: layed back but passionate. It was beautiful! However, one thing I didn't enjoy was that, in my opinion, the romance took off too quickly. I can't imagine how could Psyche trust Erik that easily and how come she fell in love with him within only matter of days. Well, one can't even claim that it was love at first sight since she couldn't even see him, but eh.. what the heck?! It was still enjoyable and cute, so all's forgiven I guess.

One thing I fancied as well was that Erik and Psyche were both passionate about art. I think it's important to have some common interests in a relationship. Yeah, yeah, opposites attrack etc, but there's got to be something to talk about, right? I mean.. Why would someone want to disagree on everything with the love of one's life? Anyway, some of my favorite parts in this book were the scenes where they were drawing. My absolute favorite was when Erik drew the caricatures and made Psyche laugh. It was adorable!

However, I didn't like that Psyche made so many foolish decisions and assumptions. But I can forgive her that since she was a mortal and in this case, we got to see that even the gods aren't perfect, so how come we expect so much from simple mortals? *That, by the way, is a rhetorical question*

In the end, I thought it was a cute contemporary rendition of a quite famous myth and even though I think its target grop is young teens, I stay true to my opinion and say that it is something that adults with wild imaginations would enjoy, too. There were lots of moral aspects in this story that I liked and I think we all need to be reminded from time to time about the wrongs and rights, moral and immoral, actions we take in the feel of the moment and their unthinkable consequences.

Rating: 3/5.