Review: Falling in love can be messy - but oh so worth it
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 11, 2014
First off, I'll state the obvious - I recommend this to any reader of the new young adult, contemporary romance genre.Secondly and to the heart of it, the why? I am mightily impressed with Scarlett Groves' novel "This Mess We're In". I was given this book as a gift by the author in exchange for an honest opinion after I requested this book through a readers forum.  I was intrigued  based on the synopsis and due to they fact that it is set in a fictional coastal town in northern California. With romance, a bit of bad boy gone good & action, and some intense and serious subject matter, it's a very solid read.I'll get right to it. What I liked:The writing -  the author has a knack with using very descriptive storytelling from the first POV of the 2 main characters, Claire MacKenna and Damien Cruz. From the start I very much felt the physical aspects, the air, the landscape, and the emotional side of the things, The desperation for connection and the immediate sense that Claire and Damien had for each other. The author also has a great knack for dealing with some uncomfortable subjects with realism and respect: mental illness, drug addiction, and lost hope.  Our two main characters come to table with a lot of baggage, and thankfully grow to care for each other enough, they deal with and eventually help each other get through some rough patches.What else I liked - the characters and the character development. You already know the main characters are Claire and Damien. Claire is a single mother of a precious 1 year old named Rose. I could totally picture this baby girl and in all her sweetness. I could almost smell the baby lotion (again, great descriptive writing). She is by no means the easiest baby as she has her tantrums, but this is realness. I looked up the bio on the author and sure enough, she has a child. I can only assume he descriptions of Rose and her smile, smells and crying jags come from the authors real life experiences. Claire is also sister to a recent high school graduate sister named Zoe, and a sister who is afflicted with bio-polar and psychotic disorder, named Regan. Regan makes for a lot of drama in this small families life. The MacKenna sisters are without parents and living hand to mouth, with little joy and not much to believe the next day will be better then the worst they have experienced. While Claire is the stable one, at 20 holding it all together, she is also doing what she can to TRY to make it better. And she could and does deserve a breakEnter Damien Cruz. Sexy, strong and totally lovable Damien Cruz.  What I love is that Damien doesn't come in like a white knight with all the answers and all the means to make it all better. He has his own demons and his story is JUST bleak enough to give him some edginess. We know that he lives his life driven by self-preservation, but he is still altruistic and he see's something in Claire that he admires and that gives him hope. Damien is sweet, loyal and bent on making things right.The storyline flows along well and I found this to be a very easy read. Easy in that I didn't want to put it down really, yet there was nothing SO angsty about it that I felt crazed by it. I wondered where things were going but after a few chapters, I had that inherent trust (that we long for as readers)that the author is taking the story down an interesting path and that I would be happy with where it went. The subjects of poverty, drug addiction and mental illness are handled well. Again, there was a realness and I felt that what was presented as far as descriptions of a psychotic break must have been accurately described.One last bit, with Damien comes the description of a Motorcycle gang and all the, well seedier aspects of the MC gang lifestyle are described. Nothing surprising here and again, its handled well and balances out with the rest of the story.  Damien also has another side to him, tattoo artist/MMA fighter.  He's been busy on his first 25 years of living.  Damien might just end up being your new favorite bad ass MMA fighter boyfriendI was excited to hear that there will be a book 2 featuring Zoe - I liked her very much in TMWI and am excited to see what life offers for her.