Review: Charade by Nyrae Dawn

Synopsis (Taken from GoodReads):

Nineteen-year-old Cheyenne tries to portray the perfect life to mask the memories of her past. Walking in on her boyfriend with another woman her freshman year in college threatens that picture of perfection. 

Twenty-one-year-old Colt never wanted college and never expected to amount to anything, but when his mom's dying wish is for him to get his degree, he has no choice but to pretend it's what he wants too. 

Cheyenne needs a fake boyfriend to get back at her ex and Colt needs cash to take care of his mom, so they strike a deal that helps them both. But what if Cheyenne’s past isn’t what she thought? Soon they’re trading one charade for another—losing themselves in each other to forget about their pain. The more they play their game, the more it becomes the only thing they have that feels real.

Both Cheyenne and Colt know life is never easy, but neither of them expect the tragedy that threatens to end their charade and rip them apart forever.

My Review:

Charade starts off with an intense moment from the very first page, a scene in which an emotionally fragile college girl finds her boyfriend in a compromising position with another woman. And this is where Nyrae Dawn shows her real talent and power as a writer: The intensity does not let up until the very end! Charade is a roller coaster that only goes until the brief last chapter. The protagonists, Cheyenne and Colt, are two hopeless college students who use sex to medicate the pain they are experiencing from serious mother issues (She was abandoned. His mother is terminally ill.) In their own words, she is "weak," and he is an "asshole." They are desperately trying to survive their grim here-and-now and change themselves. Surrounded by death, the two doomed and despondent young people gravitate continually that timeless embrace that I'll call "the dance of life." The sex scenes are passionate, descriptive and tinged with sorrow. So few modern writers can do what Nyrae Dawn has done, which is take dark moments and broken characters and turn it into something truly beautiful and worthy of the name "art."

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