Every choice has a consequence.
I believe in soul mates. Why? Because I have one and his name is Jax Porter.
I have known Jax my whole life and I have loved him with every breath I’ve ever taken. The fact that we were born a mere month apart to mothers that are best friends has made us inseparable since birth.
What we have is so rare, one would think our story would be written, our fate sealed. But, unfortunately that’s not how life works. Life offers us many choices that can turn destiny into chance.
I now find myself heading toward a destination that I could have never imagined and I have to figure out where to go from here.
Will the choices that have been made change our path forever or will fate find its way?
Being the absolute angst whore that I am and after seeing many friends rave about this book and how emotional and angsty it was and seeing it all over my Goodreads feed, reading it was a no brainer for me. I was practically salivating after the synopsis alone.
Now that I finished?
And not for the reasons that you’d think. In all honesty, I found absolutely nothing angsty about this book. Nothing. Even when there was an “angsty” situation, there was just not enough backstory or development given with it to make me even slightly care about the character or their plight. None.
It started out great. There’s only one thing that I love more than a friends to lovers romance, and that’s a second chance romance. Unfortunately, I never clicked with either characters or their romance.
So what exactly didn’t work for me? Almost everything….
The writing
The lack of contractions in this book drove me up the wall crazy. I’m talking eye-twitching, hand itching to reach through my kindle and add an apostrophe myself sort of crazy. It got to the point that every time I saw it, I began to channel my inner Austin Powers.
I do not know of any teenagers that talk this way. It is highly annoying. I do not like it.
Weird timeline
The book starts off with both Jax and Lily at age twelve, but it doesn’t give a year. It refers to The Bodyguard as being one of Lily’s mom’s old movies. How old was her mom when she had her? Twelve? It was made in 1992. If this is based a number of years ago (considering at the end of the book Jax and Lily are 21 going on 22), then by method of deduction it would be 2005 when they’re 12 and a 1992 movie would NOT be old. Then when they’re 17, kindles and iPods are referenced. Then Katy Perry just a little later. It just didn’t add up. Perhaps if the author dated the time frames and put a year with the chapters it would have helped.
Miscommunication
Considering that these two are supposed to be best friends, they had so much miscommunication between them it was like they were playing a game of broken telephone. The amount of stupid decisions that were made that could have easily been avoided with a question or simple talk was ridiculous. Yes, I get that they’re teenagers but c’mon. They’re supposed to be BFFs. And it’s like they spent the entire book misreading this or assuming that…
Jax
Here’s an MC I’m supposed to be swooning over and falling for. Yet the only thing I felt for him was….rage. Pure frustrated rage.
There’s a decision that Jax makes that is the catalyst for all the fuckery that takes place in this book. But here’s the thing…I didn’t get it. Why? How? And most importantly, WHY? There was a reason given, but it was weak. Oh so weak. It was almost like it was thrown in there as a ‘by the way’ sort of thing, just to explain it. Or try to explain it anyway. But it didn’t explain it. At all. If anything, it just frustrated me more. Perhaps if there was more background, more backstory and more development with it, I could have understood. But as it was, I found the reason to be stupid. So stupid it actually made me dislike him as a character.
Secondary characters
You know what I love in my books? Unpredictability. Nothing better than a good plot twist. I found the set up with the secondary characters so predictable, it was eye roll inducing. I knew from the very second that a particular secondary character was introduced, what would happen. And I was right. I don’t think it could have been made any more obvious. Perhaps that was the point? But as it was…
Lily
I’m a picky bitch when it comes to my heroines, it’s true. But could Lily have been more of a wet blanket? Gawd. I really felt for her at first, but then her constant back and forth and forgiving of Jax’s douchebaggary made me completely lose respect for her. And then that ending? Are you freaking kidding me?!!! No really. Are you FREAKING kidding me? OMG!
I had to take a day to sleep on my thoughts after finishing this book because had I posted a review immediately after, it probably would have been a 2 page rant. I hate leaving bad reviews, especially when I seem to be one of the VERY few that doesn’t connect with the story, but I couldn’t think of one thing I liked about this book. Not one. And that seriously hurts my heart because I had such high hopes for it. Will I read the second book? Probably not. I just don’t care enough for the characters to want to know where the journey takes them. Unless I’m hit by some masochistic curious urge, I doubt I’ll continue.
I realize I’m in the extreme minority with my thoughts, but before you throw stones and rotten tomatoes, just remember
So don’t let my asshole opinion deter you from reading it. Try it yourself and see. Who knows? You just may love it.
