4 stars

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4 stars

A YA story about surviving child abuse, about learning that everyone is worthy of love, and about the strength of forgiveness.

Henry grew up in school with Kate. He fell in love with her on the first day of kindergarten when she befriended him, and with a big smile, made him feel welcome and since then they became best friends. Until, one summer, his family moved away.

Six years later, its the senior year of high school. With an alcoholic father who is too drunk to notice that her prescrition-drug-addicted mother regularly beats and abuses her at home, and her thrift store clothes making her the target of severe and relentless bullying at school, Kate is a the subject of horrific treatment everywhere she turns. Consequently, she has withdrawn into herself, a survival mechanisn against a world where no where is safe.

When she walks into school on the first day back and sees Henry standing there, she is shocked and mortified that he’ll see what she’s becomes. Henry, however, is the same kind, caring, tender and gentle yet protective guy he always was. He’s surprised at the change in her, and does his best to earn her trust. And throughout the book we see her journey as Henry helps her heal, learn to stand up for herself, and begin to truly believe she is worthy of love.

I loved Henry’s character – what an absolute sweetheart! He was the first person to show her kindness after so many years of being shunned, abused and bullied, the first person to stand up for her, to protect her, to care for her feelings, and to love her. He was utterly devoted to her from start to finish and watching him gently lead her out of her shell by wrapping her in his love and love from his family was really beautiful.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sincerity in ever line of his body and ringing in his voice. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of that alone. I’m sorry for everything you are going through now. But I promise you one thing.” He leans back, taking my face between his hands and gazing intently into my eyes. “You will never be alone again.”

The physical abuse the Kate suffers at home is horrific and chilling. Pure, downright cruelty. And almost worse than that is seeing how she internalizes the pain and feels unworthy – if her own mother can’t love her, how can she be deserving of any love at all? It was just heart breaking to see such a sweet, shy, kind person be treated so brutally.

Throughout the book, we get to see the back story behind the abuse – why was Kate’s mom so bitter? What made her dad so detached?  And we got to see the new beginnings brought about from acceptance and forgiveness.

I liked the book, but I didn’t love it despite having no specific complaints about it. It was pretty short, I read it in less than a day. The whole feeling of the book was very quiet… I know that’s a bit of a weird way to describe a book, but that’s how it felt to me. The story progressed at an unrushed pace, never making you feel like you missed any part of the story…..but I don’t know, I guess despite liking the story, I just felt a little detached from it. It did almost make me misty eyed once or twice, but it didn’t rip out my heart or make me cry ever despite the subject matter being pretty sickening at times. Still, it is a good read, and definitely worth adding to the TBR list.

The whole story is told from Kate’s POV, except for the prologue and epilogue which is told from Henry’s POV. And yes, the story does have a happy ending 🙂

It was definitely YA… very light and non-steamy (just kisses), but very sweet.

And someone asked me about this so I’ll mention that there is no sexual abuse in this story.

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CASTING:

Henry –> Click here

Kate –> Click here

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4 stars

“Jude wasn’t just my first love. He was my forever love.“

Woohoo! Our lovable uber-protective badboy, Jude, is back!

I really liked this book, I had some issues with it, but overall, I was very happy with it. This book had great dialogue, swoony moment, heart breaking moments, a totally badass chick fight, a heart sick badboy, some big issues to work though and of course a happy ending 🙂

This book starts up after the ending of Crash (book #1) with Jude and Lucy attending college. Jude being the superstar football player has been assigned a “Spirit Sister” Adriane (aka sheb*tchfromhell) who wants nothing more than to steal Jude away for her very own at any and all costs. Eeeeepp!! This consequently (and understandably) made Lucy feel more and more insecure around her relationship with Jude (considering his man-whoring past) and leads to a lot drama around them learning to trust each other.

“You’re all I’ve got, Luce. I’ll do anything not to lose you.“

I have to say I HATED Adriane from the moment her name hit the page. I really haven’t hated a character this much in a long while. And I gotta admit, I totally sympathized with Lucy’s insecurities at first – the thought of another girl determined to get Jude just made my blood boil… and its not like Lucy knew she was a character in a book and destined for a HEA lol.  In her eyes, she didn’t know what to think and was just working with the facts in front of her… I’m pretty sure it would make me worried too in her shoes.

I was really torn with who to side with… I think in the end, they were both equally to blame for the issues, and both equally to commend for fixing things. Overall I actually sympethized with them both. For the first while I sided with Lucy… Despite being utterly devoted to her, Jude did do several things that I don’t think he should have with whole Adriane thing which made me totally get why she was being insecure. Then for a while, I sided with Jude because I felt Lucy went over-the-top with her reactions to the conclusions she drew. But at the same time, she had pretty good reason to come to those conclusions…and poor Jude is there and he’s just so messed up and yet trying so freaking hard to do the right thing but at the same time, and yet some of his actions were just really hypocritical….. hmmm I could go on and on… basically: Holy Emotional Rollercoaster!!

“Life isn’t perfect, we sure as shit arent perfect, so why should we expect love to be?“

The book was a fair bit shorter than Crash though so none of the frustrations were too long and drawn out – making them quite bearable. And it helped that by the end, all the issues that came up in the book were completely resolved.

And I absolutely loved the ending!! It was really sweet and the author tied it right in beautifully with the beginning of Crash making the story kind of come full circle. I thought that was pretty perfect 🙂

This book is basically YA but with sex (very subtle descriptions).

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“Whoever said that love hurts was wrong. Love is excruciating, especially when you can feel it slipping through your fingers and there is nothing you can do about it.”

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Why did the story have to end there?????? WHY??!?! OK, so this is all actually totally my fault. I knew what the ending was and that it was a horrible cliffhanger before I started reading this but it still punched me in the gut!! Dear. Lord. *sniffle*

Frustrated by her shallow, controlling and uncaring filthy-rich parents, Emily just wants to be out on her own. Her older brother died a few years ago (drug overdose) and so she leaves her family (refusing to take their money) to strike out on her own, living near the cemetery where he is buried. She keeps running into this guy near the cemetery who tried warning her to stay away, to move away, but of course she doesn’t listen and at the same time is very intrigued by him.

“There was no doubt in my mind that this boy was odd and beautiful – a dangerous combination. Something about his guardedness, something about the way others in the projects had looked at his with fear, made me think I should probably run the other way next time and concentrate on not thinking about him.”

One day, while out on a run, she gets caught in the rain and, while taking shelter in the cemetery witnesses a brutal murder committed by the guy she kept running into and passes out. When she wakes up, she is thrown into a world she never expected to know – filled with drug lords, gangs, hideouts, territory wars, and secrets about her brother and the life he was really involved in…  She is held captive in a house in the country but finds herself falling in love with Cameron, the guy from the cemetery who had been watching her, who committed the brutal crime, who kidnapped her and is apparently just trying to keep her safe and also falling in love with her. But in that world, happily-ever-afters don’t come too easily.

“How long are you going to keep me here?” I drowsily continued.
Cameron pulled the glass out of my numbed hands and set it on the table next to me. “For as long as it takes.”
“And what are you going to do with me?” This came out as a whisper. My eyes were barely slit open.
Cameron paused on this question. He scanned my face, like the answer was written somewhere between the freckles.
“I don’t know”

First off, I should say that I went into this book expecting it to be quite dark, but it really wasn’t. I was pretty surprised by that. I mean, the subject matter is serious, but even though she is held captive, its in a fully furnished house, she is allowed a lot of freedom to go around the grounds as she pleases, talk to anyone, swim in the pool with everyone, make dinner etc… its not like its a dark and twisty kidnapping (not that I’m justifying it or anything, it just wasn’t quite what I thought it would be) and the “bad guys” aren’t evil or mean or cruel.. they are just involved in some shady business.

This book really blurs the line between right and wrong… What if a good person did something technically wrong but for the right reasons and in a situation where it was, in many ways, the only solution. Does that make them a bad person? Can you still fall in love with them? Can a relationship in a world where that life is necessary work?

From the start of the book, Cameron was a total mystery. He seemed to be always fighting against himself. On the outside, he seemed cold and harsh, but pieces of his softer, caring personality kept peeking through revealing his true nature and drawing the line between the person he wanted to be and the person his position made him have to be.

I’ll admit it, I got Stockholm Syndrome. I totally fell in love with him… and despite their less-than-ideal circomstances, I could really see a solution where things worked out for them and then the ending!!!!! aaarrrgh!! WHY?? *grumbles about noble idiots*

“Everything was different between Cameron and me. What I felt wasn’t just mind games or some fabricated syndrome. What I felt for him, I had seen him, felt him feel for me too. I was sure of this.”

Emily and Cameron very much have a forbidden love. In his world, loved ones are liabilities and almost always get hurt or killed. And the more she learns about him, the more she begins to understand his world and why he is involved in it.

“You’ll probably die if you stay with me,” he told me.
“Then I’m dead either way, because I won’t survive without you.” 

There were, however, several discrepancies in the book that make me squint at it skeptically but overall the story was good and so I was able to make myself accept them as part of the world. But don’t read too deeply into the details. If you think about them too hard, a lot of the stuff that happens (especially in the first 60%) can be a little unbelievable or questionable. I had a lot of moments where I kind of just shook my head, put away my thoughts on the matter and just accepted what I read in order to not take myself away from the story line… Unfortunately though, I can’t really talk about them without giving spoilers. And I kind of wavered back and forth on how much they bothered me… but then, I had to put the book down while I went to work and found myself thinking about it all day and realized that despite all that, I was really sucked into the story and the fact that it made me care about the characters like that was definitely a good sign. But I’d say that that was the primary reason for not rating the book higher. Well, that and also I would have wanted more steam. The love scenes were very tame, even for a YA book, and were all fade-to-black.

The story was actually relatively light until about 65% and then there were a series of twists I didn’t see coming…. and the ending had me in serious emotional knots! (although, I didn’t get misty eyes or cry throughout the whole book)

That being said, its not an anti-HEA ending… it definitely leaves room for things to work out in a swoony HEA in the sequel, but for now… ARRRRGHHHHH!!!!!

Edit: the sequel has now been released. 

Rating: 4 stars

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