Review: Good story with aggravating continuity issues
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2014
***spoiler alert***This is a very enjoyable stand alone book in a series of stand alone books. I like that. There is a central cast of characters, and each book seems to focus on a different pair. So in each new story you get to revisit old friends, but from a new person’s perspective. It’s fun.However......Elyssa Patrick, you are killing me with continuity issues.I liked this book so much that after finishing it I immediately picked up the first in the series, Stay With Me. And promptly learned that this second book, Go With Me, starts on a lie.Ms. Patrick, how can you do that? HOW???How can you start this book with the premise that Daphne hates Nick, or at least that she says she hates him, and won’t even admit to herself that she thinks he is hot, when in the last book she outright stated that she liked him but wanted him to work for it? The whole backstory in this book about Daphne and Nick involved them constantly bickering and her thinking they hated each other.AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!Then, there are the gloves. Nick gives Daphne a pair of fingerless gloves for Valentine’s Day - a gift with great meaning, chosen with great consideration. Nevermind that in the previous book that takes place only a few months earlier she was wearing fingerless gloves. Did she lose the gloves she had? If so, no mention of that was made when she received the new gloves from Nick. Instead, it seemed like she never had fingerless gloves, and Nick getting them for her was like The Most Considerate and Thoughtful Gift Ever.Lastly, there is the issue of The Accident. A horrific crash which occurred over a year before Go With Me begins, and in which everyone but Daphne died. Of course Daphne is dealing with some demons from the accident - survivor’s guilt, being smothered by concern from her brother and all of his friends, that kind of thing. The only demon she doesn’t seem to have developed after being the sole survivor of a fatal car accident is Drivers Anxiety. That’s right, Daphne was driving when her car was struck by a drunk driver, and her boyfriend, best friend, and best friend’s boyfriend were all killed. And although she doesn’t drive but once in the entire three months covered by this book, that one time (in which she is rushing a family member to the hospital), she steps up to the plate to drive when others are too frazzled and anxious to drive. That seems likely, right? Her whole existence is fraught with accident-related issues and anxiety, but the whole driving under pressure thing? Not a problem.I cannot express how much these gaffes in the storyline bother me.The story itself was pretty good. Daphne is cool, although her mental dialogue is a bit much. She is so casual about some things - like her lack of sexual experience and the fact that she came close to dying in that accident - yet gets overwrought about other things that I consider less important. The “big secret” that she keeps from Nick, that she is sure he will hate her for if he ever finds out falls into the “mountains out of molehills” category. However, Nick is super hot and so enamored with her, and she is generally lots of fun, so I can overlook her immature psychoses for the most part.The continuity issues? Not forgivable.I want to read the rest of this series. I really do. Daphne, her brother, and their friends are so entertaining and fun that I am curious to read how everyone else’s love story plays out. I am more than a little wary, though, of what I will find in the next stories. Will there continue to be major deviation from book to book? Will the author continue to show a cavalier indifference for what she has already written? There are at least four other characters whose stories are presumably waiting to be written.Ms. Patrick, please, please, PLEASE keep the stories true.