Review: Georgia is mine.  All.  Mine
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 11, 2013
It’s no secret I love me some Andrea Randall.  Ten Days of Perfect was one of my first Indie books and well, I couldn’t write a review to save my life, but that began my love affair.Then came Reckless Abandon.  I still couldn’t write a review, but my heart was ripped to shreds with this one.  The character development…the new additions to the story…it was just a gut wrenching tale.ANYWAY, all that lead up to Sweet Forty-Two.  Now.  You need to read these other two books before you read Sweet Forty-Two.  I mean, I guess you don’t HAVE to, but, I’m telling you that you should.  It enhances the story.  Andrea has a way of making you feel feelings you keep bottled inside and pushed way down to the core of your messed up little mind, and well, Sweet Forty-Two is no exception.Reagan Kane stole my heart in Reckless Abandon.  He just has this relationship with Ember that rivals everything.  It was never sexual (although at one point it tried to be) and it just…it goes so much deeper than that.  He intrigued me and when Andrea asked me to beta-read Sweet Forty-Two, I jumped up and down.  No lie.Reagan goes through some major things.  He’s attempting to piece his life back together.  After escaping to Ireland for awhile, he decides to help out his cousin, CJ.  CJ who is in a band with Ember and Bo….see how this is all tying together now?  ANYWHO, when Reagan meets up with CJ, one of the first things they do is go to visit CJ’s friend, Georgia.  Georgia can only be defined as bad a$$.Ignoring social convention, this girl gripped the edge of the bar and leapt over it as if it were a pommel horse.Georgia reminds me of Shrek.  Let me explain. She’s got layers.  Like an onion.  You can tell this from the get go.  She’s a mystery.  She plays a badass on tv but you KNOW she’s really made of mush on the inside.  Her defense mechanism is pushing those she wants closest away because in the end, she just knows they’re going to hurt her.  Reagan can sense this.  He can’t explain it, but he’s drawn to her.  There’s just something about her that makes him want to forget, but, alas….Reagan has issues of his own to work through.  Speaking of Reagan and Georgia’s issues, Andrea is the queen of one-liners and Sweet Forty-Two is no exception to this rule….Everyone’s got an R-rated version of their pain, Georgia(sidenote:  I want Andrea to brand this and make it a trademark.  tshirts.  bookmarks.  SOMETHING)She also has a way of taking things you may think, and expressing them into the words you can’t find yourself.  One thing I particularly loved about this book was Georgia’s fascination with Alice in Wonderland.  It just fit everything perfectly.I flowed from sitting to standing in one overly graceful motion. Rehearsed.We were all actors here.Georgia escapes into her own little “fantasy world.”  It’s how she deals.  It’s what allows her to make it through the day and well, it is just HER.The thing that drew me in the most to this story was….there’s not a whole lot of “action.”  It seems the trend nowadays is sex, sex and more sex.  People fall in instalove.  It’s easy.  There’s never any turmoil.  They hop in to bed together and run off into the sunset.  That’s not the case with Georgia and Reagan.  Sure, there may be instalove.  There may be attraction…but it sure the hell isn’t easy.I just mean, Georgia,” he teased, “people generally take the few basic and bare things afforded to us in this world and make them as complicated as possible. Us, though? We complicate it in beautiful ways. We have fun with it. Basically, we’re awesome.They have this bond.  It’s unspoken.  It’s there.  They’re that couple who could sit in comfortable silence, because they’re just there.It was clear that she trusted me, but what was clearer was that she didn’t want me to vocalize itI could gush about this book for days.  Georgia is just such a relatable character and the relationship she forms with Reagan, and even Bo and Ember just makes my heart happy.  There are SO many little details in this book that make it what it is.  The nuances.  The way these characters pour their emotions into everything they do.  The gut-wrenching way that they deal with situations.  It just all makes for one big emotional masterpiece.If you read one book of Andrea Randall’s this should be it.  There’s something in here for EVERYONE to love.