Hold Me Like A Breath (ARC Review)

Hold Me Like a Breath (Once Upon a Crime Family #1)
Tiffany Schmidt

Expected publication: May 19th 2015 by Bloomsbury

Synopsis via Goodreads:
Penelope Landlow has grown up with the knowledge that almost anything can be bought or sold—including body parts. She’s the daughter of one of the three crime families that control the black market for organ transplants.

Penelope’s surrounded by all the suffocating privilege and protection her family can provide, but they can't protect her from the autoimmune disorder that causes her to bruise so easily.

And in her family's line of work no one can be safe forever.

All Penelope has ever wanted is freedom and independence. But when she’s caught in the crossfire as rival families scramble for prominence, she learns that her wishes come with casualties, that betrayal hurts worse than bruises, that love is a risk worth taking . . . and maybe she’s not as fragile as everyone thinks.  



Review:

The idea for this book is amazing. A crime family that sells black market organs AND a princess and the pea retelling?
It is a recipe for amazingness. And it worked, kind of.

The Characters:
Penelope Landlow (from now on known as Penny) is the only daughter to the crime family that sells black market organs. And she happens to have a health problem that makes her very fragile, the slightest touch can make her bruise (making this book apparently a Princess and the Pea retelling, but I feel like making this a Princess and the Pea retelling was a last minute thought because other than the health problems there really weren't all that other similarities.)
I couldn't connect to Penny. Half the time she drove me crazy, and I honestly could not get how she was so naïve. This alone wasn't enough to REALLY bug me though. Slight things here and here made me want to have a talk with her, but it wasn't that annoying. At least for the first half of the book. Her character went WAY downhill in the last half of the book. (Mostly because of something I can't reveal because it would be a spoiler)
I am not going to talk about the romance in this book because it would also spoil things. But there is a sort of love triangle, and a serious case of insta-love. Insta-love is one thing that I cannot stand. And this book has more than one case of it.

The Plot:
The plot felt a bit haphazard to me, like some things were thrown in at the last minute. The first half of the book (or so) was interesting and I was enjoying sort of liking it, but after that, I felt like everything went downhill fast. The book's pace changed, the entire book's plot changed, and it actually felt like the author changed. I am all for plot twists and game changers, but this just felt like the last half of the book came from a different book as the first half! To elaborate, the first half of the book was interesting and I was enjoying it. Then something big happened and suddenly I didn't understand anything and everything was messed up and it felt like one really really long paragraph with no punctuation whatsoever and like plot points were thrown in at the last minute and everything was SO MESSED UP.
There was a great story going here, and having it all fall apart like that was awful.

If I was rating this book on the first half alone, it probably would have ended up being something I would have recommended. Because I know that some of the things that bugged me in the first half were just pet peeves of mine. However, that last half ruined the book for me.  I have no idea why any of that happened and I still can't wrap my head around it.
I think that this is supposed to be a series, I'm not sure, but I probably will not continue.