Review: So good
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 18, 2014
Past Imperfect is the story of Mabry and Brad, two people with not so perfect pasts. He is disconnected with those around him and does not think twice about casual hookups with random women. We met Brad in Present Perfect, when he dated and humiliated Amanda. Since then, he has grown up but continued in his use ‘em and lose ‘em ways. As a child, Mabry watched her mother lose a battle with depression, eventually finding her mother after she committed suicide. While her father pulls away to deal with his grief, Mabry turns to self harm, a practice she continues well into adulthood. Both characters sort of float through life, using sex as a tool rather than for the connection. Until they meet.I spent the first half of the book feeling so heavy and dark. Both characters are dealing with so much grief, pain, and guilt over their various past activities and experiences that I couldn’t see where the story was going. Until I hit about the halfway mark. At that point the pieces started falling in to place and I began to wonder how they would work through the present to heal their pasts.Once some hints about how and why Brad chose to turn his life around started to come out, my attention was hooked. For me, he was the key character because he was the one pulled from book 1 in the series and I had disliked him so much when I read that one. He had a lot to prove in order for me to connect with his story, and though it took some time, I finally warmed towards him. When his background started coming out, I was shocked and understood more where he was coming from with his actions. And once I was warmed up to him, he was golden.Mabry had my heart from the beginning. The things she had seen and experienced caused her to be so broken. She could see the damage she was doing to herself, but didn’t see a way out and didn’t want to let others see that darkness in her. Even with Brad, she always held a bit of herself back, and knowing that hidden bit was there just kept breaking my heart every time she took a step backward in her journey.This had a vastly different feel than Present Perfect, rightly so, based on the two main characters. While their stories started out very dark, together they start to see light and eventually I was rooting for them to work things out together.Thanks to Alison G. Bailey for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.