Review: Definitely worth the read!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 12, 2014
I feel like a lot of people were really disappointed that this novella was from Brooke’s POV simply because Brooke was a sort of antagonist for Aria and Perry’s relationship. Because of her history with Perry, she adopted a somewhat sour disposition and she wasn’t very amiable towards Aria and struggled to be around Perry. I was actually really looking forward to reading Brooke’s POV.I feel like I’ve been been in Brooke’s position before, albeit in a less intense way. It’s not easy to be in a situation like that — post-break-up AND a new person creeping in on your territory… Thrown in conflict with a sister who’s essentially been kidnapped and a threat to your home and it’s easy to feel exactly like Brooke does. She’s a very strong person but she’s had so much thrown at her that it’s hard to keep it all together. I actually really liked reading from her perspective because we got to see a different side of her and hear things from inside her stream of consciousness. Brooke is a hard creature to tame so she’s less likely to filter her thoughts and her actions. It was interesting to see compared to Aria and Perry who make very calculated decisions.Reading Brooke’s story also showed her growth throughout the series as well. It’s hard to see how developed her character really is when we only get Aria and Perry’s story in UNDER THE NEVER SKY and THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT and Veronica Rossi is an expert at character development. She’s definitely come a long way since we first met her and even though this is only a novella, she really shows the most progress in this book. We also get some, erm… swoony action here! Since Brooke doesn’t get any more involvement with Perry, we actually get a taste of two new boys in this story and I really loved learning more about both of them!BROOKE is a novella that takes place between THROUGH THE EVER NIGHT and INTO THE STILL BLUE, but having already read INTO THE STILL BLUE, I’m actually glad I read BROOKE after. You can absolutely read BROOKE before the last book in the series (it does come sequentially before!) but I really liked reading the last book, seeing how everything plays out through the end, and going back to just before INTO THE STILL BLUE starts. Just my personal preference (like I think there are going to be spoilers or something haha. There aren’t, but I’m just weird like that) but I really liked reading the novella after!