Review: There really are no words ...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 1, 2013
I'm not sure I can even put into words everything I need to say about this book.  It's just so *incredibly* well written.  I can't do a plot synopsis for you but I can tell you that Andrea Randall is a magician with words.  Her writing is ... incredible.  This isn't a particularly unique story ... boy and girl fall in love, break up, and try to recover.  That story's been told before.  But NOT LIKE THIS.  Not with these words.  It is absolutely, 100% the writing that makes this story so wonderful.  It's the way Andrea manipulates the words until they are so expressive that the reader has no choice but to go where the characters go, to feel what the characters feel.  Even when I hated (HATED!) November, I could feel her.  I could understand her.  It is no small feat for a writer to make a reader understand the feelings and motivations and reactions of a character that the reader doesn't even like.  For most of the book, I didn't want to understand November, I didn't want to feel what she felt.  I wanted her to shut up and do what I wanted her to do.  I didn't agree with her.  But I did understand.  I didn't have a choice.  Her feelings were jumping right off the page.I loved Adrian and I hated Adrian.  I hated his guts for appearing to stand between Ember and Bo.  But I loved him because he really was just a good guy.  Even when he appears to turn into a jerk, he doesn't really.  He's scared and hurting and, at one point, a bit desperate.  He has a natural reaction to that, and my heart broke for him.Regan was a freaking doll.  Loved him.Spencer Bowan Cavanaugh.  Bo.  I am madly in love with him.  He's just so ... everything.  I can't even explain how much I love this character.  He's every single thing you want him to be.  He's all manly and powerful but raw and emotional and broken and really, you just want to give him a big hug (and maybe stare at that tattoo on his back).  I love that we get a bit of his perspective in this book.  That was a huge surprise for me and hearing parts of the story in Bo's own words made me love him even more.The music is, once again, fantastic.  The music in this story is like another character.  Again with the writing.  Only a superb writer can use the written word to make a reader actually *hear* a song.  I'm telling you, it's like I was inside this book, living this story, hearing these songs.  I cannot say enough about the writing.  It's just really something special.73% ... I have thought of little else since I read this part.  I can't even.  There are no words.  Other reviewers had alluded to this, others flat out said what happened, so I knew what was coming.  But I cried like I didn't.  And I cried every time Bo appeared for the next 10% or so.  73% beat me up ... I still feel beat up.In the end, I really felt that November redeemed herself.  I loved her after she did the internal work that she needed to do.  I was happy with the ending, happy with where the characters were in their lives.  Ten Days of Perfect left me angry (dang cliffhanger ending :p) but kind of giddy with the love story I'd just read. I couldn't even talk after TDoP.  But Reckless Abandon blows TDoP out of the water. It left me completely exhausted.  But in a good way.  Emotionally speaking, this book took me everywhere.  This review probably doesn't even make sense.  It's not the review that's going to make you decide if you want to read this book or not.  If you've already read it and you loved it, like I did, then you get what I'm trying to say.  I keep trying to put into words the incredible-ness that this book is, the way this book made me feel but really ...There are no words.