Review: Breakfast at Tiffany's Meets The Prince and Me
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 29, 2014
Life’s What You Make It is Breakfast at Tiffany’s meets The Prince and Me. Set in the 80s it’s the perfect blend of bad decisions, reckless abandon, mounting passion, and perfect love. Sebastian Irons and the Libertines, his posse of arrogant upper-class nobility  with a live life hard and fast with no regrets attitude, could care less about consequences. They live life in the now, partying hard, getting into trouble, and hooking up with abandon. Things like love, fidelity, and caution are for the poor and a waste of time that could be spent getting high or waking up in the arms of the latest conquest. Everything is going swell for these social elites until a horrible accident shakes them to the core. They never thought that a little fun could go too far and that a situation couldn’t be fixed with their unlimited funds. Sebastian feels lost. Sometimes, even in the height of his high, he’d crash, consumed by melancholy, getting trashed just to cope with his mundane lifestyle. After the incident, Sebastian is more depressed than ever, takes a serious look at his life and feels like everything has been a sham. Forced into a future that he loathes, stuck with a mother he doesn’t love and who bribes him with her money, and a slave to the whims of his friends, Sebastian is resigned to a life left unfulfilled. The moment that changed everything leaves a lasting impression, Sebastian doesn’t know how to cope and slips further into dangerous behavior that he can’t come back from. When he’s approached by his mother with an ultimatum, Sebastian is faced with a shocking reality, banishment to Pennsylvania and into the hands of a tutor. America is nothing like Sebastian expected and the students are not too friendly. Sebastian finds kindness in the eyes of a average looking brunette and becomes more curious by the second. Tess isn’t anything at all like the girls he’s normally attracted to but something about her draws him in and it’s with absolute shock that he comes to find out that this enigma of a girl is his dreaded tutor. Tess isn’t looking for love or even a date, her days are dictated by a strict schedule and she has no room for alteration. NYU is her dream and she has to maintain her spot as valedictorian to get there. Sebastian is a distraction she doesn’t need but at $15/hr and with tuition to pay, she can’t say no. Will Tess be able to wrangle Sebastian’s frisky behavior, get him to buckle down and focus on her grades or will he drag her down with him?PROS:That nonchalant, careless attitude that the Libertines are made of is wonderfully written. They’re haughty in an upper class, passive way that is very Holly Golightly and Daisy Buchanan. They’re sophisticated, polished, and thirsting for danger, uninhibited and almost vapid. Their reckless and half-hearted attempts at caring bring the disenchantment with their A-list lifestyle. The fame and fortune can’t give the Libertines a golden or happy life and their disillusionment is so profound it’s almost sad.The relationship between Nanny Jones and Sebastian is heartwarming. It’s that glowing warmth of kindness, genuine care and unfaltering love. The way Sebastian clings to memories of Nanny, the teddy bear story, and the endearing way he tells her he loves her will melt your heart and make you fall a little more in love with him.Beneath Sebastian’s roguish, playboy attitude is a heart yearning to love and be loved. Sebastian has spent his life in one night stands and pointless flings, hunkering to sate his passions but unable to build any real connections. Sebastian’s feelings are an incredible insight into his psyche, a glimpse into the reasons behind his actions, and his deepest desires. He’s insanely complex, almost broken in his inability to truly love those who it should have been natural to. Sebastian will make you ache with pity. Although he’s spoiled and sometimes a sarcastic, flirty jerk, he has some serious issues that cannot be easily overcome and take a lot to work through.Sebastian’s transformation is huge. Away from the Libertines, it’s as if he is a whole different person and will the help of Tess, he grows rapidly into a compassionate, thoughtful, and complicated man with goals that rival even Tess’.Tess is confident is who she is and knows what she wants. She has clearly defined goals and plans for her life and is so mature that it’s admirable and you’ll feel a teensy bit envious. I know I did. Everything is black and white for Tess, clear yes or no choices that can be made with conviction. She rarely strays from her comfort zone and works hard constantly. When Tess starts to make mistakes, it’s as if she wakes to a whole new world, where things are so much more real and raw than she imagined. When she opens herself up to love, it’s beautiful and giving, she becomes more than just a headstrong girl and learns to live and let live.Sebastian and Tess compliment each other. They balance and test each other, pushing and pulling in an epic game of give and take. As their feelings grow, something magic happens and suddenly both characters are faced with a truth that they never expected.The ending is totally open for a sequel.If you’re searching for a feel good love story without too much drama and with a lot of heart, check this one out.CONS:Some of the scenes are too short, they’re cut awkwardly going from one moment and skipping several days. For example, the Thanksgiving scene, I was dying to know what happened and it didn’t.Tess can be infuriating at times, she is very determined and stubborn, her bull-headed nature gets in the way of some of the romance.The secondary characters, like Tess’ two best friend’s Jordan and Courtney are like an afterthought. At first they have a pretty strong presence but as the story develops they’re left in the background and don’t really function well in the plot.I recieved this book as a gift in correlation with a blog tour :)