Review: Completely Unexpected!!!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2014
Kimberly Lauren chose an interesting way to tease this book – she didn’t. As a reader, you go into this story with virtually no idea what it will be about. Lane and his back story was always kept hidden and I loved jumping into the story blindly – I wanted to be surprised. In an effort to allow you the opportunity to experience this book the same I will make this review as spoiler-free as possible; however, keep in mind by doing this, there really won’t be much for me to say. I will say that this is NOT a dark romance – it just tells a story you would never expect.Lane Parker is a complete mystery. I had no idea who he was or what he was hiding from his friends, especially his best friend, Audrey. Regardless, I was eager to know what this man kept so close to his chest. When it was all finally revealed…I was speechless. I would have NEVER guessed what his past held. It was heart breaking and a person’s worse nightmare. I remember thinking…this book is NOT what I expected AT ALL.As a result, this book started out extremely different than the first two books in the series, and in a way almost very non-New Adult like. I will assure you that this book is a romance – you just have to get through the surprises to find it! I LOVED this part of the book – the part where I learned everything and the story had me unable to put the book down just so I could find out what new revelation would unfold. I commend the author on bringing such a different twist into the New Adult genre.Despite the first third of the book being amazing, I felt like the middle of the book dragged a bit. Because so much happened at the beginning of this book, there wasn’t much happening in the middle – it was lovey-dovey and cute, which I enjoyed, but I kept saying to myself, is this it? I felt that the beginning was so shocking that the romance didn’t naturally flow from those events.The heroine is someone from Lane’s past who he was never romantically involved with. I think this is why I felt like the beginning of their relationship was forced. I had no back story, just internal thoughts from the both of them. One minute he hated her – yes he hated her due to a misunderstanding – and the next they were making out and he was calling her “babe.” It just was a bit unnatural for me. One of my favorite things about reading romance is seeing the development of the feelings between the two main characters. It was hard for me to get this in this story. It felt a bit forced at first for me; however, I will say that once they got further into their relationship, I loved them together and it was obvious how they each felt about one another.While I may have found that the middle dragged a bit, the ending definitely was unexpected. I said at the beginning of this review that this book started as an a-typical New Adult book, but the story definitely ended back in the genre. It had hot – and I mean HOT – sex scenes, absolutely adorable moments, a swoon-worthy hero, and a fun group of friends that really round out the story.I really enjoy this world that Kimberly Lauren created. All the characters are so fun and unique and together they make a family that I wish I could be a part of. Lane’s story was really brilliant – I just wish it was structured and told a bit differently. As a whole this was a great book and I could put it down.