Review: 2 to 2.5
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2014
I received this book via Netgalley for an honest review.While the blurb isn’t all that telling, it made me think that it’d be the kind of stories I’m always hungry for. While it’s a nice and sweet read, it’s not at all as full of angst and emotional as it’s supposed to be.Be warned, I might not be so tender even though I thank the author for the effort. I hate writing negative reviews, but every books can’t be my cup of tea.In my opinion, when an author decides to tackle heavy issues and when an author decides to give a really, really tough background to the main character, the story needs to be emotional, needs to puts us to our knees and knock us down to better chain us to the main character, to all characters, looking for their new beginning, building themselves a new life, a better one.Here, everything seem to just happen and I couldn’t connect fully with Becca. She opened up way too easily and too fast which contradicts completely with her character and with what we’ve been told only a few pages before. She also gives in to Levi so fast! I mean, the girl is supposed to be closed off so as a reader I’d need to see her inner struggles, the way Levi had to actually fight for her.Everything was happening without a real idea of the time frame, without being actually conscious of the transitions. It was unsettling to the point of keeping me at arm’s length. There’s basically no or close to no build up.Also, the dialogues seemed forced most of the times and the lack of descriptions sometimes was weighting down my reading pleasure. If only the dialogues would have been amazing it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I really had a hard time with the dialogues.To be honest, I think this story could have been cut in two to better give the author the opportunity to develop everything from the plot, twists, consequences, stakes and characters. Then, I’m pretty sure that I would have been on board with Becca and Levi’s story. In the end, I never bought their story, their love and Levi is still an abstract character with too many things unsaid about him, things that could have brought him to life otherwise. Or so it seems.But at the same time, when I think about Becca’s tragic past I can’t help but somehow praise the author. After all, I’m pretty sure it’s not easy writing about such things and while it’s a miss for me, I can understand if other readers are moved by this story.