Review: Good contemporary romance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 14, 2013
High school students from opposite sides of the tracks, JJ and Sherry shouldn't have had anything in common. He was a star athlete, popular, wealthy, with the big house on the water. She lived in a rundown fifties box of a house with her alcoholic father and her beaten down mother. When her father got tired of beating her mother, he beat Sherry if she wasn't fast enough. Her clothes were used and always a bit too small or too large. Sherry resented JJ's easy life and made sure that he knew she didn't worship him like everyone else.But Sherry fascinated JJ. She always had, and he wanted to break through the deep freeze she gave him. During their junior and senior years, JJ pursued Sherry, and was pretty full of himself that he could have her and not have to say any mushy stuff or make commitments.  Sherry, on the other hand, fell head over heels in love with JJ. She gave herself to him body and soul.But when other people started rumors, when Sherry needed him, JJ failed her completely. Sherry disappeared a month or so before graduation and JJ never knew where she went.Fourteen years later, a young lady presents herself on Sherry's doorstep wanting to meet her birth mother. She also wants to meet her father who, of course, doesn't know about her. Her worried adoptive parents are relieved to meet Sherry and see that Mandy got a good welcome from her birth mother. But Sherry explains that she has no pictures of Mandy's biological father and isn't sure quite where he is now, so she will go find him and put him in touch with his daughter. Mandy's birthday is coming up in a few weeks, on Valentine's day, so Sherry promises results by then. Then Sherry sets out to revisit her hometown, somewhere she never wanted to go back to again. With the Herculean task of finding the adult JJ and dropping a bomb into his life.There is a lot of character growth and development in this story and introspection into how we live our lives- taking the path of least resistance versus challenging ourselves. It also deals with the hurts dealt as young adults that last long into adulthood.Heat factor moderate.