Review: Allison Parr is a Genius at Creating Smart, Fun, Real Women in Their Twenties
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 27, 2013
This is one of those instances where I am so mad at myself for never having written a review for the first book in this series Rush Me. I read it back in September and I loved it and I'm happy to say that this one was no different.I will say that I didn't love Natalie immediately like I did for Rachael in Rush Me. The book kind of jumps right into Natalie's story and there's not a lot of background information which made it difficult for me to immediately connect with her. But I liked her.And that's what I really freaking love about Allison Parr. Her ability to create and write strong, intelligent female characters in their 20s is really remarkable. As is her ability to show what life in NYC is really like. I moved to NYC when I was 22 and I was making no money and let me tell you, the NYC life depicted in so many books is just totally bogus. But not Allison Parr's books. From the places the characters live, to the places they eat, to the struggles they go through, everything is just so true to life.But back to Natalie. Although I wish we got some more background on her personal life (we learn a lot about her academic/professional life and some things about her family life, but I wanted to know more about her previous dating life), I respected her so much. Natalie is an archeology grad student who, since her lonely childhood, has been obsessed with finding a lost Irish city that connects Ireland to the Roman Empire. When the book starts Natalie has just gotten funding and is about to go to Ireland to start a dig on a site that she believes is the lost city. But then the owner of the land suddenly dies and the deed passes to Mike O'Connor, the star running back for the New York Leopards football team.Natalie grow up as a Leopards fan, something I loved as someone who, along with most of my girlfriends in our twenties, is a big football fan. So she's a little star struck to meet Mike, but she's also a professional who knows what she wants. Unfortunately Mike isn't as charming as his persona led Natalie to believe and he refuses to let Natalie dig on the site. The description sells Mike as being a real a-hole, but I didn't think he was that bad. He has his hangups and is a little inflexible, but I still really liked him.Once Mike refuses to let Natalie dig she decides to go to Ireland for the summer anyway to do research. Mike also goes to Ireland with his mom and sisters to research his family roots. They end up staying at the same bed and breakfast and hit it off with leads to problems since Natalie still wants to dig on Mike's land and Natalie is kind of emotionally stunted.I loved Mike and Natalie together. They were such good foils for each other and I loved how both of them, Natalie especially, still retained their personalities and goals even though they were with another person. And, honestly, I was really worried that Mike had some totally stupid reason he didn't want Natalie to dig on his land, but when the truth eventually came out I was really surprised and impressed by the reason Allison Parr came up with.Bottom Line: Allison Parr's writing and characters literally blow me away. I guess this could be the top end of new adult since Natalie is in grad school and very much still trying to figure out her path in life. If we're going to call this new adult then this is truly what new adult should be: smart characters, interesting situations, and a great romance.