Blog Tour: Stitch by Samantha Durante - Review and a Giveaway!

Welcome to my stop on the Stitch Blog Tour! 

~About Stitch~

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Her heart races, her muscles coil, and every impulse in Alessa's body screams at her to run... but yet she's powerless to move.

Still struggling to find her footing after the sudden death of her parents, the last thing college freshman Alessa has the strength to deal with is the inexplicable visceral pull drawing her to a handsome ghostly presence. In between grappling with exams and sorority soirees - and disturbing recurring dreams of being captive in a futuristic prison hell - Alessa is determined to unravel the mystery of the apparition who leaves her breathless. But the terrifying secret she uncovers will find her groping desperately through her nightmares for answers.

Because what Alessa hasn't figured out yet is that she's not really a student, the object of her obsession is no ghost, and her sneaking suspicions that something sinister is lurking behind the walls of her university's idyllic campus are only just scratching the surface...

The opening installment in a twist-laden trilogy, Stitch spans the genres of paranormal romance and dystopian sci-fi to explore the challenges of a society in transition, where morality, vision, and pragmatism collide leaving the average citizen to suffer the results.
~My Thoughts~
Alessa Khole is starting out fresh as a college freshman after the death of her parents. After months of depression, she is finally trying to pull herself back into real life with the help of her only friend and housemate, Janie. Only this isn't as easy as it seems. Besides the fact that she is wildly unhappy and is plagued by strange dreams, she has started seeing a ghost in her sorority house. A very handsome ghost, mind you. Nobody else seems to see him and Alessa has no idea who he is, but with Janie's encouragement, Alessa decides to investigate. Unfortunately, Alessa is about to learn the real truth about the ghost, her life and her parents the hard way. And when reality finally hits in, Alessa has some serious choices to make not only for herself, but for those she loves.
I can't tell you how happy I am to be taking part in this tour. I originally won a copy of Stitch on another blog back in November and hadn't been able to read it yet when the author contacted me about a possible review. I jumped at the chance to join the blog tour and am so happy that I was finally able to pick this book up. 
I was not disappointed. I was immediately sucked into Alessa's life and couldn't stop reading. Alessa is a likable character, sad and lonely, but also very smart, resilient and even funny at times. I could definitely understand her struggles with adjusting, especially after her parents' deaths, and felt hopeful for her in her new school. Her one friend, Janie, was also a pretty likable character, especially since she didn't judge Alessa for anything she did, especially when she started seeing a ghost.
This story took me somewhere that I was not at all expecting to go, and that was definitely a good thing.The chapters alternate between Alessa's dreams, her reality and also the ghost's reality.  I had no idea how the lives of the ghost and Alessa were going to play out or how they were going to connect and I never could have imagined the truth. 
The only small issue I had with Stitch was that it took a little longer than I would have liked to get to the truth. But when I was reading and that thought popped into my head, I turned the page and BAM! Everything starts coming out and I couldn't even put the book down long enough to go to the bathroom. I think this was just a sign of me being the impatient person that I am. With this being the beginning of a series, I understood that character and world building was an extremely important part of the process and I wouldn't change anything about this book. 
Overall, I loved Stitch. The author has found an exciting new twist to the dystopian genre and you won't be able to put the book down any more than I was able to. I recommend this to everyone, especially those who love dystopian reads and Young Adult in general. This is storytelling at its finest. 
~About the author~

Samantha Durante lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, Sudeep, and her cat, Gio. Formerly an engineer at Microsoft, Samantha left the world of software in 2010 to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams and a lifelong love of writing. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerome Fisher Program in Management & Technology, Samantha is currently working full time for her company Medley Media Associates as a freelance business writer and communications consultant. Stitch is her first novel.
For more about Samantha Durante and Stitch, visit her website here. 
~Purchase~
Amazon
~Giveaway~
Thank you to Samantha for hosting this fantastic, tour-wide giveaway! 
The prize:

  Enter the giveaway HERE!
*I received this book for free in exchange of an honest review. This did not influence my opinion in any way and all views and opinions expressed are 100% my own.