Seventeen-near-old, Laila Patterson, would never describe her heart as fickle. She understands the difference between reality and fantasy, which is why Sam Woodson is not realistic boyfriend material. After all, he is in college, and college boys simply do not date high school girls. Plus, he is Laila’s older brother’s best friend. According to the unspoken bro-code, messing around with your friend’s little sister is pretty high on the list of forbidden taboos.
What happens when Laila discovers that her secret crush on Sam isn’t quite so one-sided? What if the only way to keep him is to keep their relationship hush-hush? Is Sam worth all of the lying and sneaking around?
As if things weren’t confusing enough with Sam, an old family friend suddenly shows up after being gone for more than three years. She isn’t expecting Trevor Maddox to move back to Westbrook. She isn’t expecting him to attend her high school, and she certainly isn’t expecting him to be so damned gorgeous.
Laila doesn’t want or need this unexpected distraction. . . or does she? (Goodreads)
Note: I was approached by the author, who offered me a free copy of this book in return for an honest review.
When Laura Clark offered me a copy of this book, I had never heard of it before. After reading the synopsis on Goodreads, I decided to spring on the opportunity that I had, and was given a copy of this book. My relationship was pretty much a love hate relationship. There were things that I adored and there were things that I detested. At some points this book really bugged me, but, for some reason, there was just something compelling me to carry on reading – in short, I couldn’t stop reading, even though I wanted to at times! In short, I am going to list my loves and hates.
As always, bad stuff first:
Grammatical errors: considering this is a book that has actually been published and isn’t an ARC copy, I was disappointed to find a couple of grammatical errors and, what I assume is, typo’s. The publishers and the author should’ve had a better look!
Laila’s indecisiveness: Whilst this works to a certain extent, it bugged the … out of me after a certain amount of time. It was grating, I was cringing and this is where I started to struggle with this book. While I mostly liked both guy characters, Laila bugged me!
The love hexagon: We ended up going from a love triangle to a love hexagon – which is almost kind of confusing. While it was fairly easy to keep up with, it probably would have been better with two separate triangles..- if we really need that many love problems!!
Cliche’s: I am all for cliche’s, this book was, however, too full of them!! It seemed like every page had some form of cliche on it which was just cringeworthy!
Italics: Every other word was put into italics!! They are supposed to be used to emphasise something important, but it seemed like the author was emphasising the least important words in the sentence!! It made me want to retype the entire book!
Onto the good news!!
Chemistry: I loved the chemistry between multiple characters! I think my favourite feely – creating chemistry was between Laila and Trevor! I adored them together, and they are the official couple that I ship in this book!
The ‘rents: Most times, the parents within book are old fashioned and annoying. What I loved about this book was the fact that Laila’s parents are hip and in the 21st century! They like music that their kids like and they act younger than they really should whilst still acting like a typical parent!
Cliche’s: I know, I know! I literally just said that I disliked the cliche’s!n Well, having said that, there were a couple within the book that had me feeling the feels! It was just so cute!!
Sam and Laila’s first date: Can I just say awwwwww!!! It is the kind of date that only ever happens in movies and books and leaves the audience jealous because they want that for themselves… at least the women do!
Reality: This book was almost like jumping into someone’s reality! It wasn’t difficult to imagine that this could actually happen in real life, which made the book more enjoyable. I think that, with books like these, it is vital for it to be imaginable as a real life situation because there is no fantasy or supernatural side to it!
These are all my loves and hates! I am sorta, kinda looking forward to the next book – it is definitely on my TBR list 🙂 I am giving this book 3.5/5 stars.
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