Review: I Never Expected to Love Toby This Much
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 09 21, 2013
I must admit, Toby was not my favorite person when I read Broken At Love. In fact, I wasn't so sure that I'd like this installment of the Whitman series as much as the first two because I didn't know if I could forgive him for being such a D-bag. Then I read Be My Downfall and I was completely blown away by him.Toby tries hard to keep his nose clean at Whitman because of his dad's political prominence. Part of that includes keeping the secret of his brother's descent into drug addiction, something that still causes Toby to feel guilty and abandoned. Then Kennedy drops into his life. She's a consistently wasted party girl, but Toby sees something deeper in her, a broken girl still tortured by the death of her parents and little brother.Toby is just amazing and a great choice for narrator of this story. His voice has the perfect amount of emotional depth tinged with the college guy humor and vernacular. He's emotionally vulnerable without being overly sappy, making him a good match for Kennedy.Kennedy is just broken. There's really no other way to put it. Numb to the world, she learned from an early age that drinking herself into oblivion and having rough sex is the only way she can feel. She's not anywhere close to perfect and she's not even sure she wants to change.The relationship that develops between the two of them is an emotional roller coaster ride. There is a lot of back and forth, but it's not based on angst and silly misunderstandings. Kennedy is dealing with recovery on top of learning to trust Toby and Toby is learning to accept her choices without blaming Kennedy for being unable to get better. The author describes the cycle of addition and its effects on friends and family members with painful detail and she manages to convey a realistic, yet hopeful, message about recovery. I very highly recommend this book.**I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review