Review: 3 - This Ain't No Fairytale Stars.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 12, 2014
You pretty much know what you are going to get when you read a Jessica Sorensen book, she is the queen of angst, and in any given situation there is always a little more added just to make sure you are approaching overload by the time you have reached the end of the book.As you would expect Lila and Ethan are two extremely emotionally damaged characters, rich girl, poor boy and although you have seen glimpses of Lila and Ethan when reading both of the Ella and Micha books the small parts of their lives you are given in these books, only scratch the surface of how messed up these two people really are.If you are looking for bunnies, rainbows and fairytales, step away now and pick another book, this is not for you. However if you are looking for a book that grabs you and pulls you through the emotional spectrum then this is certainly a title you want to check out.We are dealing with some heavy issues in this book, again this is nothing unusual for Sorensen as she seems to thrive in the darker aspects of the NA genre, addiction, drug-taking, alcohol abuse and sex are regularly and repeatedly strewn through the pages.Unfortunately, for me the main developments in the story all seem to be in the first 20% and the last 35% of the book. A lot of what happened in the middle section could have possibly been pared down, and shortened to a more acceptable length, considering the book is well over 300 hundred pages long and a lot of it seemed a little ‘later, rinse, repeat’.I think it’s pretty safe to say that Lila is either going to be someone most people will love or hate. I did struggle with her in the first half of the book, because quite frankly the girl was firmly on ‘Self-Destruct’ and it didn’t look like a lot would move her from that path, even Ethan’s constant attempts to literally be her ‘crutch’ were pretty repetitive after a while. Ethan just like Micha is a guy from the wrong side of town, with issues of self worth (amongst other things) and I found his actions pretty admirable as the book progressed, even though he tries to keep a part of himself back and his emotions in check, his development through the story is heart-breaking in parts . If this was real and I was in his shoes, I don't think I would have stuck around and dealt with as much of Lila’s acting out as he did, yes there are reasons for it, but boy I was firmly on my last nerve with her when she finally got herself together.Most of the secondary characters in this book are pretty abhorrent, Lila’s family in particular.I would definitely say this is a book that you need to be in the right frame of mind for. I picked it up and read a few pages and put it down again several times, not because it is badly written, but when I pick up something by Jessica Sorensen I know I am not in for a easygoing romantic fluff piece, you can’t not get involved with the story in passing, you have to give it your full attention (whether you want to or not), and whether you love or hate the people you are reading about, you know that you are going to be emotionally exhausted at the end. I suppose you can say that ‘they all lived happily ever after’, but no doubt Jessica will have something else up her sleeve in the future to throw a spanner into this couples HEA, especially as Lila and Ethan: Forever and Always is due out late 2014.Hard-copy received from the publisher in exchange for the above honest review.