Review: Brand! I was so excited to know he finally got his own book.s
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 6, 2014
It will probably come to no surprise to anyone that I have loved Brand Killien for years. Well, not really years, but definitely ever since I read If You Leave and he was introduced as Gabe’s best friend. There was always something about Brand that drew me in. It could have been the way he looked after Gabe and made sure everyone had their shit together. I don’t know, but whatever it was, I fell and I fell hard. Now that Until We Fly is here, it’s super amazing to see a book completely dedicated to Brand and the girl who’s perfect for him.I have to be perfectly honest, I have mixed feelings about Until We Fly. On one hand I love Brand and everything about him. Learning his backstory and how be became the man he is was fascinating yet heart breaking at the same time. But then there’s Nora. I have a love-hate relationship with her.Nora had a huge crush on Brand when they were both teenagers. He worked for the country club her parents were members of and she got to see him all the time. She fancied herself in love with him but then he went away to the Army and for readers, we know what happens to him. Now with Nora, she’s lived a cruel life. She’s expected to follow in her family’s footsteps and become a “Greene”, someone who knows what they are supposed to do and be who the family needs her to be. There’s also much more to her family than she ever knew and things that have happened to her that are wrong and as the same with Brand, heart breaking.But that’s not why I have a hard time with Nora. What really gets to me is how obsessed she seems to be with Brand. She sees him once and she’s like an alcoholic needing a drink. She has to be near him and she wants him, if only for the summer. He would rather be alone but she finally beats him down enough that he relents and starts their sordid love affair.Again, I just, don’t get it. It’s like any book where one of the characters is obsessed with the other. It doesn’t make sense to me. I also think everything started happening too fast for it to have any semblance of realism. Please, don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Until We Fly but I feel like it could have been so much more.Courtney is an amazing author and her words have so much emotion behind them. There were many times where I was happy, or sad, or even angry. And it’s all because of Courtney.I received this book for free from Courtney Cole in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.