3 stars

Better is the sequel to Good and is the final book in this 2-book series about a taboo student-teacher forbidden romance. This is a direct continuation of the story from Good following the same characters and is not a standalone.

Ok. I wanted to like this, I really did. But for me, it just didn’t have the same spark that the first book, GOOD, had. Please know that it was not the taboo part of their relationship that bothered me – I loved the first book and I have loved many other books that push boundaries.

My problem with this book was that I really felt like I couldn’t respect the characters’ decisions. Who knows, maybe they were realistic? Maybe that is how some people would react to their situation? I don’t know. But I just got overly frustrated with Mark and (especially) Cadence’s decisions again and again and also felt like the religious aspects of the story were heavier here than I would have personally liked.

I guess I just felt like while there were some funny, witty scenes and a few romantic ones, that there were also a lot of scenes that just didn’t hold my attention and for a good chunk of the book I felt like it was one WTF moment after another. For me, it was just too much. I liked Cadence a lot in the first book and understand that she was younger and less mature than Mark and I also get that there’s no ‘standard’ way to act for a certain age but I just felt like she was overly immature and just generally regressed in this book.

I did still like Mark a lot in this one. He made mistakes for sure but he owned up to them and you could tell how much he cared for Cadence (despite that care bordering on creepy every once in a while, but that was to be expected given their huge age gap). He did have two WTF moments too though that rubbed me the wrong way but for the most part he was the highlight of the book for me. I just wish we’d seen more of him in it because a large portion of the focus of this book seemed to be on Cadence.

And, just randomly, I also preferred how the first book was written in first person. This book was written in third person and for some reason something about it just didn’t work for me.

This being said, I’m still a huge fan of this author’s writing. I love that she writes about uncomfortable topics. I love that when I read her stories I never know exactly what I’m supposed to feel. In this book I kind of went back and forth between wanting to root for Cadence and Mark and inwardly cringing. It’s like this author makes me feel things that I’m not sure I’m okay with feeling but I like that it pushes boundaries. I loved both Going Under and Good and will absolutely be looking forward to the next book from S. Walden regardless of how I felt about this one.

Rating: 3 stars.

“When it rains… Think of me.” 

• Buy WHEN IT RAINS (Kindle)

When It Rains is a well-written, highly emotional story about love, loss and healing. It’s gut-wrenchingly sad at times but also has many beautiful moments and is the kind of story that really make you feel.

This is going to be a very unconventional review for me though…  it’s the kind I always find so scary for me to write but honesty always comes first with me even if I run and hide in a corner after posting it :/

I feel very torn about this book and, to be honest, I actually would not have read it of my own accord had I known the details of the plot in advance because, in my eyes, this is a love triangle romance and personally, I’m just not usually a fan of them. There are certain exceptions to the rule for me but they are rare and the majority of them just don’t appeal to me. In the interest of being fully open though, I’ll say that different readers have varied outlooks as to whether or not this book counts as a love triangle though and the person who recommended it to me did not see it as one. I respect their opinion but simply feel differently about it.

For the record, my definition of a love triangle is when two people are in love with the same person but only one of them can be picked. In the case of this book, there were two guys in love with the same girl and she had to choose between them. It was an unconventional triangle but it still was one to me.

The specific part that bothered me here though was the heroine’s decisions throughout the book regarding the two guys and so personally I will say that this book was not for me.

However, I realize that a) many of you are fans of love triangles, b) some of you might not see it as one, and c) that those of you who don’t like triangles should know what this is about in order to help make a decision about whether or not you wish to read it….

So, in an effort to be fair to everyone, I have written a 2-part review. The first part will be for readers who do not usually enjoy love triangles, and the second part will be for readers who do. Each part will have a separate rating because regardless of my own personal feelings, I feel I owe it to the book to look at it objectively.

But before anything, here’s a little about the book…

The basic story line follows the heroine, Kate, who has grown up living next door to a guy, Beau. They’ve been inseparable best friends and as they got older, they both knew in their hearts that they were each other’s forever. Unfortunately, one rainy night without Beau there to protect her, a guy rips away a part of Kate’s life, taking something from her that she could never get back.

“My once picture perfect view of the world was gone, and all that remained were a bunch of broken pieces that I couldn’t glue back together.”

Ashamed and confused, she kept her nightmare hidden from everyone in her life for over 2 years not even telling Beau despite how desperately he cared for her and tried to get her to open up to him about it. He knew something was wrong but he didn’t know what and he was willing to wait for her, be there for her and support her no matter what.

“I love you. I think I’ve loved you since I was five…. If you ask me to stay, I’ll stay,” he says, searching my eyes. I’m always worried that he’ll find the truth buried in there somewhere, but he hasn’t yet. I pray he never will.

But Kate didn’t feel worthy of his love and kept pushing him further and further away… and finally when he left for college, she severed nearly all their ties wanting him to go on and find his happiness without her.

At this point in her life, Asher walks in. Gorgeous, mysterious and totally into her, he pushes her to face her fears and get back the pieces of her life that were stolen from her. For whatever reason, he is the one she can accept help from and she falls hard for him. But he is hiding a huge secret… one that that quite literally changes everything…

PART #1 – FOR READERS WHO DO *NOT* LIKE LOVE TRIANGLES

Rating: 2.5 stars

First, if you are a fan of triangles or if the idea of the story I mentioned above doesn’t bother you at all, just skip straight down to Part #2 because chances are high that you’ll actually love this book.

I’m not going to lie though, when I first finished the book, I was pretty furious. As a reader who desperately seeks commitment and a stable, solid relationship between characters, I found this to be a very hard read.

I think the problem was how strongly I connected with Beau in the beginning and how much I believed in their future and as such, I was honestly just incredibly frustrated with Kate. I mean I tried to be understanding of her given the horrible trauma she’d suffered but, at the same time, her decisions just did not sit right with me. I hated the way she kept pushing Beau away — it hurt so much — and I tried not to be judgmental because everyone copes with pain differently but it still broke. my. fucking. heart.

“I don’t know why I keep him at arm’s length when it’s obvious he just wants to be there for me, but I also don’t know why he lets me. He just wants what’s best for me, but I hate that he keeps sacrificing his own happiness to give it to me. I don’t deserve it.”

I felt absolutely terrible for Beau and the whole situation really just made me sad because here he was desperately in love with this girl who wouldn’t tell him what was hurting her and kept pushing him away. He wanted to help her so badly but she wouldn’t let him. I kept trying to think of the story from his perspective and thinking of that just made my heart bleed.

See, I’d have understood it if Kate hadn’t been able to let anyone in (relationship-wise) but she pretty much just let Asher in instantly. And I won’t deny that what Asher did for her was beautiful – he healed her inside and out and if I hadn’t been feeling so broken-hearted over Beau, I would have enjoyed the Asher parts of the story SO much more. He was a gorgeous character with a huge heart and what he helped Kate get back was admittedly priceless.

I just felt so indredibly conflicted because on one hand I loved Asher and what he was doing for Kate, but on the other hand, the price (breaking Beau’s heart) was just too great for me to as fully be invested in it as I would have wanted to be.

There are readers who did not see this as a love triangle though because technically Kate wasn’t in a relationship with Beau at the time that she started being serious with Asher. But I guess for me, that was just a technicality. I actually felt like she actually was in love with Beau from the start but, because of her trauma, she didn’t feel worthy of him and couldn’t admit it to herself. She’d wanted what was best for him but given how she didn’t feel worthy of him, it basically felt to me like she was pushing him away for his own good, but not because she didn’t love him… add in the fact that Beau was certainly in love with her while she was letting Asher into her life and all of this for me turned into the kind of love triangle that I didn’t enjoy.

Also, like I mentioned above, there was a huge twist with Asher which I honestly guessed even before starting the book. By looking at the book cover and reading the one quote that was posted everywhere in association to the book → “When it rains… Think of me.” ← I put two and two together.

While most of my frustration lay with Kate, Asher also did something that rubbed me the wrong way in that when he saw (in person) just how deeply Beau loved Kate, he had an opportunity to come clean about his secret and he didn’t. At that point, I really felt like he should have been open about it. It was his chance and he didn’t take it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how Beau must have been feeling throughout this all and it just broke my heart. I’m hiding the rest of this paragraph as a SPOILER because it reveals Asher’s secret AND who Kate ends up with.

*sigh. I cared deeply for both Beau and Asher in their own way. I guess I just really really wish they were not in the same story 🙁

PART #2 – FOR FANS OF LOVE TRIANGLES

Rating: 4.5+ stars

I truly believe that if you are okay with love triangles, is a good chance you may absolutely love this book so I’m going to try and write this as fairly as I can because if the story line doesn’t bother you, then really this is a beautiful, heart wrenching and very well-written read.

The flip side to everything I wrote above is that people are not perfect. Nobody is. And everyone reacts to trauma differently. When something that life changing occurs, it hard to judge how it affects people so in that respect, I tried to be more understanding of Kate (and Asher to a certain extent).

Regarding the story’s presentation, I have to say that I loved this author’s writing style. She conveyed the emotions so vividly and was able to make me connect me very strongly to these characters right from the beginning. I’m always very impressed with a book that’s able to have me nearly in tears in the first 10% because that just goes to show just how quickly I became totally invested in the story.

The whole book had a constant deliciously angsty feeling. It was thrilling, a little mysterious and very beautiful in many respects. It also absolutely broke my heart and made me ache when the twist played out.

As much as it made me sad to see how much Kate pushed Beau away, I have to admit that what Asher gave her was truly beautiful. He was insistent, pushed his way into her life and pulled her out of her shell.

“I want to know you. I want to know what it is that made you cry, but more than that, I want to know what I have to do to make you happy again,” he says, his voice soft.

He healed her, help her find herself again and brought her back to life. He gave her a second chance, he really did… I just wish he didn’t have to break someone else’s heart to do it.

The ending is bittersweet but, as I said, people aren’t perfect and life certainly isn’t a fairy tale. Sometimes it throws curve balls that change everything you’d planned, and sometimes it hands you a lifeline that helps you survive. Overall, the writing is beautiful, and the story is very well put together and truly made me feel. 

CONCLUSION

Even though this story may not have been for me, in all honesty I do believe that many people will love this book. It really puts your heart right through the ringer and I can see it ending up on many readers’ favorites list for sure. My intention here is really not to deter you from reading this book.

Had I had a more accurate understanding of the direction of the story line before reading the book, I would simply not have read it because this is not the type of story line that appeals to me personally. That does not mean there is anything wrong with it. Every person reads a different book and no two people’s reading experience is the same. I encourage you to check this book out and see for yourself because who knows, you may end up absolutely loving it.

• Buy WHEN IT RAINS (Kindle)

Why was he my Romeo, but I wasn’t his Juliet?

• Buy VERY BAD THINGS (Kindle)

Hmmmmm…   3.5 stars

I read this one because of all the glowing recommendations I’d received for it. So many readers are absolutely loving this book at the moment and I can certainly see why. It has a lot of the “check marks” for me too — swoony, tattooed hero, a slightly angsty, almost forbidden (ish) tension/attraction between the hero and heroine, and it’s a standalone so you can read the whole story in one sitting. But… it didn’t fully float my boat because there were just too many things that kept pulling me ‘out’ of the story and annoying me — it took the main couple (okay – specifically, the hero) way too long to actually agree to try a relationship, I found the heroine to be too immature for my personal liking in many respects, and I felt the ending was way too rushed. So overall, I did like some of it but it wasn’t a 100% fit for me. I’ll explain further…

The story follows Nora, an 18 year old high school student who is suffocated by her mother’s constant and stifling need for perfection and one day she just reaches her limit. No more good girl, no more playing by the rules. From this point on, she is determined to be as bad as she can be. And it starts at one of her school speeches where she publicly tells everyone to fuck right off (teehee, it was kind of awesome).

This is the first time that Leo sees her and he’s drawn to her. He knows (or rather, thinks) he shouldn’t be because he’s the 25 year old guardian of his brother who attends her school. Besides, he’s the love ’em and leave ’em kind and in his own words has “never met a girl I couldn’t say goodbye to.” Nora is the first girl who makes him want more but their age gap is too much for him to handle and despite wanting her, he refuses to allow himself to give into his feelings.

And so begins the back-and-forth game. She wants him. He wants her. He holds back. She wonders why. And life goes on. He stays with his fuck buddy girlfriend and Nora continues to want him but, since he so blatantly makes it clear that doesn’t want her, she fools around (just fooling around though, nothing “all the way”) with her admirers at school… until finally, towards the end, he realizes the error of his ways and that they might actually be perfect for each other.

Ok so, except for the fact that he kept on rejecting her over and over and over and over again, I actually really liked Leo. The rest of him (minus that element) was absolutely the kind of guy I’d fall for. He was swoony and protective and certainly made my heart flutter in nearly all the times he was around. But I hated that for the majority of the book, he was sleeping with someone else. Don’t get me wrong, he was not cheating since he and Nora weren’t technically together while that was happening but it still really bothered me. A lot.

In all honesty, I did consider putting the book down in places but, at the same time, there were certainly parts of it that gave me butterflies. It was addictive, I have to give it that, and I was curious enough to see where the Nora/Leo side of the story would go that I wanted to see it through to the end.

I found some elements to the story to be over-the-top and Nora’s immaturity had me rolling my eyes on several occasions BUT, something about that first scene where she and Leo connected in the parking lot had really grabbed me and I wanted to know what happened so I kept going.

I will admit though that the parts of the book that had my attention were the Leo/Nora parts, and also the Sebastian parts (he’s Leo’s brother) and there were a lot of in-between scenes that weren’t about them (more about Nora and her school friends). Personally I felt that the story would have been stronger if some of those in-between scenes had been cut down in length.

The message was that “having” physical things isn’t what brings you happiness, that comes from the inside and from being true to yourself. Friends, lovers, following your dreams… those are the precious things in life and sometimes you have to fight to be able to hold onto those.

I will say though that the ending was very sweet. Finally they both admitted and gave into what we all knew from Chapter 2. Despite the fact that it took them 95% of the book to get there, it still did make me swoon because like I’d said, I couldn’t help but be drawn in. But… it was very sudden and basically a complete 180 turn from “we can never be together” to “we will be together til the day we die”.

I liked how passionate they were about each other, I just wish they’d realized it earlier because there was actually only 4% of the book where they were officially “together” and almost 3% of that was a sex scene. So… I just felt it was rushed. I liked the direction it was going in but I wish that there had been more of a focus on them after they got together or at least an epilogue set a few months/years into the future to give us a bit more balance.

Oh, and WARNING — and really, this was my fault ‘cuz I guess should have looked more closely at the table of contents before reading but… the book ends at 84% on my kindle because there are seven previews for other books after it!! It really took me by surprise. So just, be warned… 84% is the end.

Overall I hovered between 3 stars in some places and 4 in others and am rounding it off to 3.5 stars. That being said, this is just my personal opinion. A lot of other readers are absolutely loving it so who knows, you might too…

3.5 stars

• Buy VERY BAD THINGS (Kindle)

Please don’t lynch me!!

I’m a little scared to say this given all the passionate fans of this book but, if I’m going to be honest, I just wasn’t feeling it.

I mean, I get it. I totally get why so many readers loved it. It had a hot Alpha (somewhat damaged) hero, boat loads of steam and all, plus he was a fighter (gotta love the bad boys, right?)  but… I just honestly barely felt anything while reading. I also had several issues with some of the content and then found the ending absolutely predictable. Nothing ever surprised me or made my heart race so … I just don’t think this story was for me.

I know a LOT of readers loved it though, it’s been getting so many 5 star ratings, so I know that in many people’s eyes it’s got something special and I fully respect that, I guess I just personally couldn’t connect to it.

REAL follows the story of Brooke and Remy. Remy was the champion boxer who every woman just lost their heads over. He was hot, dangerous, and unbeatable in the ring. When Brooke’s friend drags her to one of his fights, they have a chance encounter and from that moment on are hooked on each other.

But when she was called to his hotel room after the fight, the last thing she expected was to be offered a job to tour with them. Brooke specialized in athlete rehab therapy and Remy wanted her there to help him with his training and after his fights. Or so he says. What he was really looking for is something “real”. A real connection. Not to Remington “Riptide” Tate, but to him, Remy. She agreed, and their story began.

I had several issues with the story but I’m just going to just list a few of the main ones then leave it at that so that you can get a feel for what bothered me.

My first issue was their connection, or lack of. For me, it was too much, too soon. The entire story was told from Brooke’s perspective and I just felt there was SO much focus (right from like page 2) on how hot she was for him every time she even saw him that I felt there was no time spent on actually building a real connection between them.

My second issues was the repetitiveness of both the scenes and certain words. There was a lot of clenching, muscle bulging, drenching etc. I’m not usually one to nit pick, but the word ‘clench’ was used over 70 times in the book. That’s a lot of clenching. And it began on page 3. Another term that I began to tire of was ‘speedy’. Now the hero was bi-polar. And (I’ll address my issues regarding that next) but whenever he had an episode, they called it him going ‘speedy’ and I just got tired of the word. And just in general, a lot of the wording really made me mentally ‘trip’ while reading. Here’s an example of the kind of thing that just didn’t work for me.

“Tonight we’re both naked and deliciously entangled, and my sexy blue-eyed lion now seems content to have petted me for a long while, until I feel groomed down to my bones.”

Ok, next, about him being bi-polar. I won’t give the details because I don’t want to spoil them, but basically, everything regarding the way his medical condition was a bit of a stretch to the point that it wasn’t even remotely believable. I felt that, if the author was going to use that plot element, she should have use it accurately. I normally try to look past this sort of thing but it really bothered me here because it was referenced several time and there was just no way it was remotely plausible. His condition was described as some sort of gene switch that flicked back and forth and could also be determined by looking at his eyes which switched from blue to black if he had an ‘episode’. His eye color chance was also linked to this gene switch. In a paranormal story, sure, I’d buy it. In a real life story, no way.

And finally, I predicted the ending from about a half way into the story. To a tee. So there was no adrenaline rush or anything because I just knew exactly what was going to happen.

I thought this book had great potential. I liked Remy a lot as a character and I even think that in a different book, I could have maybe fully fallen in love with him. His back-story made my heart ache and it set him up wonderfully as a damaged/tortured hero and I totally understood where he was coming from in terms of wanting to find something ‘real’ in a relationship.

“Why’d you want to have sex with me? To have a fucking adventure? What was I supposed to be? Your one-night-fucking stand? I’m every woman’s adventure, damn you, and I don’t want to be yours. I want to be your fucking REAL. You get that?”

“I want this. Very badly.” He nuzzles my nose with his. “I’m trying not to fuck it up, all right?”

See? Now that stuff is swoony! And the way I look at it is this. I liked Remy. I really did. What I didn’t like was everything surrounding him  – including the heroine, which sucked because the story was told from her perspective. But, the result was that it made it harder for me to connect to the book as a whole (including Remy).

I mean, there were a few awwww moments, a few really gorgeous lines, and a few moments where I felt the hint of a ‘spark’ in their connection but those moments were brief and didn’t last long enough to sway me into fully liking the book.

I fully respect that many people loved this book, it just really wasn’t for me.

3.5 – 4 stars for Remy’s character.
2 stars for the rest of the book.

PURCHASE LINK

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