This book is LOVELY. Everything about it appealed to me - I love a contemporary romance, I love a girl who's a mess, I love a guy who's got a beard (and dogs) (and is a mess), I love a secret virgin story. I am not so keen on small-town stories, because I am from a very small town, but this one felt awfully real, mostly because Cara is trapped in a small group of friends who are kind of horrible in ways she doesn't want to acknowledge until Wes makes her.
I think I've said about nine different things are my favorite trope already, but ONE of my favorites is definitely "two screwed-up people make each other better," which is the plot of this book. Cara is the family screw up, who has no confidence in herself and runs from relationships and big opportunities. Wes has anxiety issues, and is back from Afghanistan, where he was injured. He thinks of himself as a total screw up and an idiot, and he lives in a cabin by himself, where he tries to avoid people. But you know how it goes in these books; Cara breezes into his life and turns it upside down. He tries to make her believe that she's actually great and needs to stop doubting herself; she tries to make him believe that he isn't irreparably broken. They really like each other, but they're both very bad at relationships, in ways that felt very real.
I guess if I had to have a complaint, I'd say they break up and get back together maybe one too many times in the book for my taste. It feels like it ends, and then goes on, and then ends again. But I like them both so much, and I was really rooting for them. I'm adding the other books in this series to my to-read list.
(I'll throw up a link here when we discuss this book on Romancing the Tomes.)
Grade: A
#29 in 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment