Review: A wonderful surprise
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 27, 2013
A boring title, a less-than-pretty cover, and an awesome book. Which is a surprise all of it's own because it was only $0.99!I love these characters. I love this book. I love this author. Never once has she made me angry enough to want to throw my reader across the room. I loved it.Dylan was refreshingly not-annoying for a heroine in this type of book. Guess what? She's not a virginal, naive, little girl so new to the world. No, Dylan is just grieving, and that's the only reason she will seem timid to you in the beginning. But, she's anything but :). You will love her and feel for her, and be happy with her and she has this sort of infectious charm, it's so easy to see why people naturally gravitated towards her. I'd love to have her as a friend.She's also a typical girl, swooning over Kai and overanalyzing everything and making rash assumptions.Kai's character is why this book is different than every other rockstar book out there. He has no tattoos. He doesn't live the celebrity wild life. He doesn't do the whole sex, drugs & rock'n'roll thing. I loved that about him. You don't get much of his POV other than the prologue, but the author did a great job of letting you get to know him through and through. And he was such a nice guy. A good person. Definitely doesn't deserve the bad-boy image he has. I hated it when he would doubt himself.The chemistry between these two was awesome. It's not really insta-love, it was more insta-like. Perhaps a bit of insta-lust. I believe that. He's a tortured artist persona and she's his new muse, and I didn't really see it anything as big as love-at-first-sight. They get to know each other and fall in love, so it's not purely based on mutual attraction.What I liked the most is that they talk. Yes, there are secrets between them, but there are no big misunderstandings and even the small ones are cleared up really fast.And the sexual tension through the first half of this book was through the roof. It kind of simmers down at that halfway through mark, but there was a point where I was getting really frustrated with it. But I loved these two! Absolutely loved them, because they are exactly what the other needs. I was dreading their screw-ups so much because I just wanted them together.I loved the way this book was written! It's a bit on the long-ish side, but I didn't think anything was too much. All the characters, main and secondary, were well developed, real, and I just really loved them all. Wes and Abel! I'd actually read a whole other book about these two. Leko as well. I connected with all of them.They are actually a wonderful group of friends who take in Dylan as one of their own and make her feel at home. I never felt like she was being left out or antagonized throughout the book.The book is laced with humor, but there are some heartbreaking moments as well, and there are sweet, swoon-worthy ones as well as angsty.For what it's worth, it reminded me a bit of another book I read plot-wise, except I didn't hate it and the characters. Everything that happened made sense and I was okay with it, and I rooted for Kai and Dylan so much.I was dreading the ending because I knew there will be another book but you all may be happy to know that while it sets up the second book nicely, it has a proper ending for Dylan and Kai. So it's not a cliffhanger exactly, because you're aren't left..hanging.There are a couple of mildly-graphic sex scenes in this for those wondering. I think it suited the book, the way they were written.So, overall, I expected nothing, and got an instant favorite. I really enjoyed this.