Review: All over the map with this book...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 29, 2013
3.5 "Can't See Past My Own Mistakes..." KissesAs I sit back and reflect on what I just read...I can't make sense of my emotions. Maybe that's a good thing - I don't normally feel conflicted over a book. It's usually black and white...I know what I think and how I feel, I don't like confusion. I am one confused girl right now.I truly enjoyed reading almost every word of Ten Days of Perfect, the first book in the November Blue series by Andrea Randall. I fell hopelessly in love with the characters, Ember and Bo...my heart was bruised with the cliff ending, but that's what made me want to read Reckless Abandon even more. I knew when I was 20% and struggling with everything that I was reading that this wasn't going to be what I was hoping for or expecting."The truth is, the cuts on my face and body have mostly healed, but I'm beginning to wonder if the gashes to my heart will ever stop bleeding."There are only so many ways an author can take a story line and it's characters once everything has been established but if you had told me before I started reading that my opinions and feelings on Ember would have done a complete 180, I would have laughed at you. In my mind that wasn't possible - I absolutely adored Ember. But for the life of me the things she was doing drove me over the edge. I was so mad at her and it was NOT in her character to do what she was doing. I guess by the time I got to end I figured out that was the plan all along, but I hate that that's the direction it went!After the way Ember and Bo leave things in TDOP, there is a lot of unresolved issues, and rather than dealing with those issues and coming to terms with it we are just left with the fact that Ember has made up her mind and is using Adrian (her ex) to console her. You just broke up with the love your life, your `thousand lifetime' love...really? I wanted to slap her. WTF?!!? And poor Adrian finally thinks this is his chance, to make up for their past and 5 years spent apart - because I do believe he has always loved her. What she is doing to herself as well as to Adrian is completely unfair, another reason why I was just over Ember and her antics.Bo...I wanted to be mad at him for hiding the truth (I don't know why I call it that, lying is lying, but...just go with me)...but I can't be. I believed his apology and I was so mad at Ember because all she did was avoid him & the whole situation. He did not have malicious intent for lying, you can see with every word that he is sorry and regrets his decision, but it's like Ember won't even stop and think about giving him another chance. You give your `thousand lifetime' love a second chance...you just do.Of course I fell more in love with Monica (Ember's best friend), Josh (Monica's bf), Rae (Bo's sister) and we were introduced to Regan and CJ. It was cute because in the midst of all of the angst and frustration of Ember, my heart and mind were drawn to the little romance between Rae and Regan. Though brief and fleeting glimpses, it was so cute because your heart was just pining away for some kind of love and connection. It wasn't that you didn't get it from Ember, but it was with her and Adrian, and I'm sorry - I was not on board that train."He fills my thoughts, my dreams, and my nightmares. The memory of him, and his touch, pound on the door to my soul with such force that cracks are forming in the wood. I do my best to act like no one is home by keeping the door locked and the lights off."Now let me tell you about Chapter 28...72%....I was heartbroken, shocked, pained, crushed. I like it when books catch me off guard but this felt like it stabbed me in the heart. I never thought I was going to ugly cry during Reckless Abandon...I cried off an on for almost 10% - just when I would think I got it together, I'd read something that would trigger the tears all over again. SO many times I'd have to put my kindle down because I literally had to. I'm crying right now remembering what happened...those emotions...those words - it was SO powerful and I LOVE books that bring out emotions like that in me...but I felt it was unjustified."It just hasn't felt right, letting my puddle of pain drip into the canyon of loss swallowing him whole."After that happened, I was so emotionally drained and clueless...I just wanted to be happy. I wanted the warm squishy feelings of TDOP, I wanted my Ember and Bo back together and everything to be back to the way it was - just stick a band aide on it or something. But it wasn't that easy...and I was mad that thru all the twists and turns this book took, that it was ending up the way it did. A part of me was angry because I didn't want any of the conflict that was there from the beginning, some of it felt forced and unnatural, irrational to a point...it was all together frustrating. There was also one scene, when Bo was drunk and Ember helps him...there is a lot of stuff going on in that scene and at the end, it kinda left me hanging. I had so many questions and maybe it just wasn't as pertinent as I thought it was, but I was left scratching my head.SO if you can't already gather, I'm all over the map with this book...my love for the characters and my hopefulness that I was get the ending that I needed is what kept me pushing thru to the end. Now the end...I liked. Did I feel it was rushed...yes. Were there things that were kinda of glazed over...yes. Did it give me the HEA I was desperately reading for...yes. My characters were happy, I was happy with the resolution and the eventually place RA left them, but I'm still trying to figure out if that was enough. Can you see why I am so conflicted?!!?!?"We fell in love in an instant; a split second blink and my entire world shifted. I was scared that it wasn't real....or that it was. That still scares me."I looked back at my TDOP review and it's funny because I say "I am hoping and praying for the HEA that I need, I just hope Ms. Randall doesn't torture me too much to get me there."Well...I was tortured. And I can't be mad, because that's a trait I look for and love in the books I read. While at the time of going thru reading RA I didn't understand where it was going, it did all tie together at the end and there was logic. Plus, I still loved Andrea's writing - so I was still completely enraptured by just about every word on the page. And with the last click of my kindle, I did have a smile on my face, so I found my happy place in the end...