Review: Wonderful Follow-up to Leaving Green Island
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 23, 2014
This book is a follow-up to Leaving Green Island, not a sequel.  While LGI centered on the relationship between Brecken and Reed, this book is Lizzy's story.  We met Lizzy in LGI.  As Breck's best friend, she was in all of the action, and part of everything.  She was the most important character, after Reed and Breck.In this book, we are treated to a continuation of the first story.  It takes place after the first book ends, but is not the story of Reed and Breck, although they figure in it.  It's Lizzy's turn to find love and negotiate some serious relationship problems.  Lizzy, compared to Breck,  is much less centered and secure with herself.  She has much more trouble finding a bond with a man, and for the first half of the book, settles for a man she shouldn't be with, but wants, basically, just because he is there, it seems.  After breaking up with him, due to his infidelity, she finds herself on a long business trip to San Francisco, where she starts spending time with Griffen, Brecks younger brother, who is currently also working there.She resists him for all of the wrong reasons.  First, he's Breck's little brother.  She thinks that somehow this makes the relationship wrong.  As we learn, little by little, the fact that he has been in love with Lizzy for, essentially, his whole life, and has now decided to commit to the pursuit of her, we watch as she tries to come to some sort of acceptance that it is all OK.This book has more drama in it than the first book.  Lizzy finds that she is pregnant by the previous boyfriend, and decides to make the relationship work simply because she wants her baby to have the benefit of growing up with his or her real father.  So, she breaks up with Griffen without explaining any of this to him.Naturally, the forced relationship fails, and Lizzy has her baby alone, and lives alone afterwards.  The rest of the book tells the story of Lizzy finding Griffen again, and how they overcome the terrible decisions Lizzy has made and make their lives together, as should have happened in the first place.This book, like Leaving Green Island, is a complex study of relationships.  It isn't a straight forward romance, but more of a study of how all of Lizzy's relationships shape her life, and how she deals with the consequences of her disastrous decisions.This author writes about whole people, living normal lives, and manages to make us care deeply about who they are and what they do.  I was surprised to find myself so swept up with these characters.  I hung on every little nuance of every little scene, and couldn't put the book down until I'd finished it.  Like LGI, it is intensely romantic, without being overdone.  I felt all the pain that Lizzy experienced, and felt myself wanting to scream "NO, NO, NO -- don't do that!" at so many points.It's a wonderful book.  It can stand alone, without reading LGI first, but I wouldn't recommend that.  You need to have the foundation of the first one to really understand the second.  It wouldn't be as rich without that.  Read it.  It's truly worth it.