Review: Toxic by Rachel Van Dyken

Toxic by Rachel Van Dyken
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Current Goodreads Rating: 4.28

Gabe Hyde is on borrowed time. He's been hiding his identity for over four years-hidden from the world that used to adore him--obsess over him--driven to the edge of insanity by one poor choice. 
But that one choice, altered the course of his life forever. 
Pretending isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when pretending means hiding your real self from the people that care about you the most. But if anyone ever discovered the truth it wouldn't just be his life at risk--but hers. 

Saylor doesn't hate men. 
Just Gabe. 
Only Gabe. 
He's a reckless, happy-go-lucky, silver spoon fed pain in her ass. Everything about him makes her more and more confused. Unfortunately they both donate time at the same Group Home. If she wasn't afraid of flunking, she'd be long gone. She hates that she's attracted to him almost as much as he hates that he's attracted to her--and she can tell, especially since their first encounter ended up making her knees so weak she couldn't form coherent sentences for weeks afterwards. But the closer she gets to him, the more confused she becomes. He isn't who he says he is, and he's hiding something big. 

What happen when two worlds collide? Two worlds that never should have met in the first place? Some secrets are too big to be hidden forever--the only question? Will his destroy everyone he loves? Or finally bring about the redemption he's been craving for the past four years?

Everyone has a secret...What's yours?

Characters: *Chapters alternate between Saylor and Gabe and start off with a quote by one of the book's characters, secondary or main.

Saylor is a freshman who's at college for her musical abilities. She feels the pressure to keep up with her music in order to maintain her scholarship, but she's in a little bit of a funk until she meets Gabe in one of the practice rooms.  He's a mysterious, brooding, standoffish yet funny guy that knows how to push people away to protect his secrets, but he lets Saylor in and shows her how to play music from her soul.  He turns out to be a sweetheart with a ton of baggage, and he deserves to have a kind girl like Saylor. Frankly, I thought Saylor was a little to patient with Gabe.  She gives him more second chances than I certainly would have given him despite his being a gorgeous Adam Levine lookalike!

While Kiersten and Lisa are in this book, they don't have important roles.  It was nice to see that they are doing well, but it was really Wes who stole the show.  In Ruin, I thought that Wes was cool, but a little too cocky. But I absolutely loved him in Toxic because he is the greatest best friend a guy could have. Without Wes, Gabe probably would have never left that dark place he was stuck in.  He is always there to talk, and I may love him more than Gabe!

Plot: In the beginning, I was confused. I legitimately thought that maybe Gabe had  multiple personalities, as in the personality disorder.  I was not expecting what Gabe's secret turned out to be! Overall, I was really happy with the ending.  If it had ended otherwise, I just might have ripped up the book! Lastly, the epilogue was cute, and it had a good message.

Sequel: The next book in the series will be about Lisa!!! It's coming out in August, and it's a bad girl/ good boy romance! I'm super excited, and I never knew that Lisa was a bad girl.  She seems sweet as pie in Ruin and Toxic.

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