Review: I really felt for Tyler.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 29, 2014
I went into Stoked initially not knowing it’s part of a series. Well, that’s not entirely true, I knew it was a part of a series, but I thought it was the first in the series. I don’t usually like picking up a series from somewhere in the middle, but this time I didn’t mind while reading.Stoked starts almost immediately after the ending of Random, the first novel in the Going The Distance series from Lark O’Neal. It’s really easy to pick up and it references aspects of that first book so you’re not completely lost.I really felt for Tyler in Stoked. He knows that he has screwed up and he is trying to make things right. He wants to be someone deserving of Jess but until a judge gives him a strange, and unique sentence, he doesn’t know how to go about it. I understand this completely, having had screwed up aspects of my own relationships in the past. You just want to make things right no matter how.When Tyler finally gets to Chile, and Jess has found out what’s going on, I think she’s too upset that he kept it from her. Okay, I get that she’s upset because it’s something she should have known, but I also get Tyler’s POV in the whole thing. He’s trying to board again, to see if he can do it, to see if he can be someone she respects. He wanted to surprise her, and she didn’t want to hear any of it. She should see that he’s trying and be happy with that. But I have to agree with Tyler on something too, it could be because of Kaleb, a guy that Jess has met in New Zealand.Tyler and Jess are thousands of miles apart so it’s only natural to find other people. But it was my intention that they were trying to keep their relationship in tact as possible? It really felt like she was trying to push him away and used his surprise as a reason to do so.While I haven’t read the first book, and don’t know exactly how their relationship was, I don’t know if I want them to get back together in a real relationship again. She’s really young and seems to want to sow her oats. Yes, he’s completely in love with her, but it just seems like he may be better off without her for the time being, if not forever.