Review: A very nice read!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2013
I have to admit, I wanted this book to be good SO BADLY. I thought that this author had so much potential from his other two works that I read before this one so the fact that this promised to be a polished, professional book got me ridiculously excited.However, when I first started this book, my heart felt like it was sinking. I don't love books that begin a relationship with cheating (yes, I consider a kiss cheating) so I was positively beside myself thinking that this book would end up not being my style. But... as the book went on I felt myself being won over more and more. From about 40% was a turning point for me.Let me start off with what I liked. I think once I got used to the author's writing style, I found it to be refreshing and easy to read. I know that that doesn't sound like much of a complement but sometimes authors can tend to write on the flowery side and get caught up in too many words. Sometimes I don't want to read something that seems like a thesaurus was used on every page. Kade's writing is much more abrupt and to the point, which I ended up enjoying very much.I also really loved the character of Tucker. Give me a flawed, damaged, hot man any day! He was sweet and funny and vulnerable and sexy. I felt a real connection to him. And who wouldn't love Alison, the wonderful best friend who only has Tucker's best interests in mind? I think the author did a great job crafting these two.I also loved the last 20%. Yes, there is a misunderstanding that factors into the ending here, but unlike some other reviewers, I didn't really mind it. It worked with Tucker's history and made sense to me. Even some of my favorite authors put misunderstandings in their story as plot devices, and even though I don't prefer them, it didn't bother me as much as I would have guessed. The reason I REALLY loved the last part of the book is because my emotions were ratcheted up to an 11! I was overwhelmed with feelings, and it bumped up my final rating from 3.5 stars to 4 stars.What didn't I like? I didn't like the character of Miranda, and not because I thought she was a bitch. I don't mind a bitchy character if the story calls for it. I didn't like her character because I thought (especially in the beginning) that she was too inconsistent. She was described as both really nice and a gossipy, country-club, stuck-up type. Well, which one? I didn't know why Tucker and Alison wanted to be friends with her at all and vice versa. I didn't get the relationship. But mostly, I didn't get her relationship with Jesse. She also did some really manipulative things and then people still said she was nice? I didn't quite grasp who she was as a character. I think with a little more re-working at the beginning, the author could have made her character make more sense.I also didn't love how Jesse and Tucker started out (yes I said that before), but not just with the cheating. Their relationship in the beginning seemed a bit forced.Though this book wasn't without flaws, I ended up really really enjoying it. The book as a whole improved so much as it went along and I couldn't put it down after the halfway mark. This is my favorite effort thus far by this author and I have very high hopes for his future books!