Review: Believe packs a punch.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 19, 2014
Originally published on Tales to Tide You OverLike True, the first book in this New Adult series, Believe packs a punch. It’s this is another wonderful story that hits on the real challenges faced in the college environment where people taste true freedom and responsibility often for the first time. Robin, the female lead, made a drunken mistake that eats at her, one she can’t tell anyone but which haunts her in part because the guy won’t leave her alone.Phoenix, the male lead, is not part of the college crowd. He’s someone who has been in charge of himself from the start because of a druggie mom and is straight out of prison, having served five months for assault because he protected his mother from her boyfriend. Life has given him little to look forward to in terms of education or pretty much anything, but he’s trying to make a go of it anyway, struggling with anger issues and the dead weight of his prison time. In another kind of story, Robin would be some stuck up rich kid on the hunt for a little danger. That’s not what the series is about though.They’re both broken people for different reasons, but together they can find love and connection if only they let themselves accept it. Their path is not easy by any means. Friends and Phoenix’s family warn Robin he’s too much for her to deal with. Heck, he does himself. But sometimes it’s worth the effort. They make mistakes, and bad things happen that are driven from the outside, but how they handle what happens, and how they are not perfect, makes them feel very real.Also like True, the book has bad language, and mentions drug use, drinking, and smoking, though Phoenix has always been clean and Robin is working on it. It has explicit sex too, but the sex is relevant in the best of ways as it’s about discovery and care. And then there are cultural references that are so perfect they made me grin. I even highlighted one about Beauty and the Beast…the Disney version of course.I found the dual first person disorienting at first, but the headers tell you who is speaking, and soon they aren’t even necessary. This is another solid read, one I raced through only to be unhappy that I’d reached the end. Despite it not being in my reading sweet spot, these two books have been so compelling that I plan to track down the one I missed, and I have no shortage of reading material.P.S. I got this title from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.