Review: Great writing but depressing emotions that weren't dealt with
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 24, 2014
I was so excited to read this one, once I found out it was connected to No Strings Attached (this is Jace's brother's story). I loved No Strings Attached. I've re-read it multiple times. Although I didn't remember too much of Nate's personality, I found this book true to what I do remember. He's a closed down person with a lot of emotional pain. He's got the emotional intelligence to watch out for his brother, but he really doesn't connect or share himself with anyone.Lilly was almost the same way. It seemed that this book was maybe a year plus after the first story and as much as Lilly was really close to Hayden at one time, they don't feel all that close in this book. Lilly has her own share of pain and heartache and problems connecting with people. She and Nate had a single night way back when, but it ended badly and they haven't interacted since then. Now, they're on the way to Hayden and Jace's wedding, with weather issues and a long road trip.The sexual tension between these two was pretty awesome. I loved the banter and teasing at the beginning of the story. Neither one is going to do anything, except push the other's buttons a bit. They both had a decent give and take, they poked at each other in a lighthearted, sexy way, and I liked how their story was progressing.Nate and Lilly each had some emotional issues that started getting deeper as the story went on. By the midpoint, I was feeling rather depressed for the characters. These issues were big. Lilly and Nate are just such broken, disconnected people. Lilly has abandonment and trust issues that need to be worked out. Nate has the somewhat normal, romance novel guy issues of running from emotional entanglements, with the extra PTSD of war-zone proportions. They have some hot tension and closeness when they're stuck in a car together, but when night fell and they stopped driving, Lilly seemed to hit rock bottom... and then they had sex. I felt really let down that this was the point they had sex. They've been bantering and teasing all day and after all kinds of rejection from Nate, Lilly is dealing with her pain when Nate decides he's had enough of restraining himself. Eventually Lilly got into the encounter too, but I felt like Nate had “horny caveman” written all over him. I don't think he commented on her tears or anything, just barges in and starts on the foreplay.As the story progressed, I liked Nate less and less. He got way alpha. He turned possessive, jealous, and demanding. And it felt like Lilly's personality shrunk in proportion to Nate's ballooning ego. She sort of went along with whatever he wanted and stopped introspecting about how to deal with her own insecurities. I saw her having a magical attraction to Nate, but I didn't really see Nate being the type of person that she'd want to be with. He didn't seem to add anything positive to her life.By the end of the book, Nate and Lilly had worked out their relationship issues. Nate especially grew up enough emotionally to admit that he was in love and didn't want to keep running from connections. But I felt the rest of their personal issues were just dropped. They stopped introspecting about their very real personal issues and didn't seem to spend any time figuring out how this relationship would work. It just all magically disappeared for the sake of a happily ever after.The story had a nice setting, good writing, and detailed characters, but I didn't think these two actually dealt with their issues or liked each other beyond their soul mate status. I was depressed through the second half of the book, but I was invested enough in the characters to finish and feel nice that they were happy at the end. I wish they had more time and space to grow as people. All in all, the book took about three hours to read and was worth it for the sexy tension, but without enough time spent on resolving the heavy emotions I couldn't commit myself to their happily ever after. I'll keep looking for more by this author, but this one isn't my favorite.I received a complementary ARC of this book from the author in exchange for my honest review.**This review is archived on my blog: The Theory Of Lieto Fine