Review: Fantastic characters and use of language.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 14, 2014
I loved these characters!Olivia our heroine is smart, down to Earth, small town Texas girl who just wants to have a fresh start at college. She is on scholarship perusing her passion in astrology. She's not interested in the typical college life outside of the class room. She is haunted by a past relationship that just about ruined her life.That all changes when Brax (our hero) tackles her on the first day of college.Brax is a "Southie" native, on full baseball scholarship that has a pension for brawling. I adored the Southie language use the author give us. Almost like a translation of his accent. It really helped me get into the character.The dialogue was superb!The plot development was just okay but it was the characters, their unique backgrounds and development really made this story for me.There are quite a few reviews of this book that complained about New Adult cliche's. And, it's true there are lots of these stories about girls recovering from abusive relationships and uber alpha bad boy guys coming to the rescue. I was thinking about why these quote "cliches" are so prominent in NA reading and I think the answer is: This is art, imitating life. More than 50+% of young women will experience some type of abuse in their dating relationships so, OF COURSE this topic will common in a college age story. IT SHOULD BE. As there should be a hero that helps them through it.-Nearly 1.5 million high school students nationwide experience physical abuse from a dating partner in a single year.-One in three adolescents in the U.S. is a victim of physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse from a dating partner, a figure that far exceeds rates of other types of youth violence.-One in 10 high school students has been purposefully hit, slapped or physically hurt by a boyfriend or girlfriend.-One quarter of high school girls have been victims of physical or sexual abuse.-Approximately 70% of college students say they have been sexually coerced.