Sarah Kleck

Annie has longed to feel those butterflies in in tummy and be with the love of her life. She thought she found him senior year of high school. Things just didn't work out that way until she met Holden. Holden is a college baseball player who gets injured during the game Annie watched. Holden and Annie start to build a life together. First, she finally admits to loving him and moves in with him. It takes Holden awhile for Annie to trust him. He's patient. Over time, things change. They take each other for granted--move apart emotionally. But they still love each other.

Annie is offered a job back home in Seattle. She thinks this is what they need to get back on track. Space especially after they both just suffered a tragedy together. Instead of this tragedy bringing them closer together--it pulls them further apart. Annie runs into her high school sweetheart, Seth.

Holden asks her to return home. Yet another tragedy strikes. She realizes how deeply she cares for Holden.

I cried so much reading this. Forewarning: at least one --maybe two boxes of tissues. This novel does NOT have a HEA.… (mere)

DNF--Spoilers and a bit of a Rant
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
At first I was willing to give the author some slack due to issues of translation. The dialogue is clunky and varies from, "Shall we meet at the library?" to "What the hell does he want?" and other style inconsistencies that are incredibly awkward. There is repetition of the same phrase or idea, and a lot of needless prose. A lot of this I don't know how much is due to writing or the translating, but there are _two_ translators; it seems like they could do better. It is frustrating, because up until a certain point I found the ideas somewhat interesting, but the character of Evelyn so shallow I wanted to shake her. There was potential. I finally stopped because I was too infuriated to read more, although I did read a little after this point to see if Evelyn would do anything other than moon about Jared. ***Warning: Spoilers and a bit of a rant!!***

I stopped at the point where Felix tries to rape Evelyn, after he poisons Sally so he can be alone with Evelyn. This isn't just some feeble attempt at a rape, it's a full-blown rip off her shirt and pants, his pants are down and he's erect and against her thigh when Jared breaks into the room and solves the situation by beating Felix up. This isn't a trigger warning, this is a really ticked off reader at what happens next at how the situation is handled. Evelyn blows the whole situation off. She's so happy to see Jared it's as if the whole near-rape never happened. She and Jared kiss outside her apartment, and that's all she can think about. _She has just nearly been raped!_ I don't care how much she has the hots for this guy, let me repeat that. She has just nearly been raped. But seeing Jared has made her all swoony, and now everything's just fine.

Sure, the next morning she's anxious about seeing Felix, for about 20 minutes. This is what Evelyn thinks about the situation: "Fortunately, I didn't run into Felix. So I decided to banish this horrible memory I would always associate with him into that little locked box of my subconscious where I carefully kept all the other dark moments my life so they would not rob me of my senses. When the time came, I would open that box and survey its contents. One after the other. And try to process everything. Somehow." EXCUSE me???

Let me just remind anyone who has actually read this that Evelyn's beloved sister, who died, and whom Evelyn does not want to let down, was a member of the POLICE. Evelyn's friend Sally asks her, "And Felix? Are you going to the police?" Evelyn says, "I haven't thought about that yet, to be honest." What? It should have been one of the first things she thought of, with a sister that had been a police officer. But no, then she decides to banish Felix to her little box--and she's a psychology major. I can't even express how disgusted I am with this book. I thought maybe rape culture was confined to the USA, but I guess not. I suppose I should really read more to find out if she actually does do something more proactive about it, rather than just leaving it at letting Jared break Felix's nose, and Sally being so non-plussed about it and absorbed with Colin. It infuriates me that the women are so obsessed with the men they're interested in that they don't seem to care that another man has tried to commit rape, and is getting away with it. Sally was right when she said that Felix was a psychopath, but after that, she drops it. And I don't have to read further to know that he's going to end up in the picture again. I am saddened by the number of five stars reviews by readers, who seem to not find this a problem at all. What rape culture? I read once a comment from one man--"I don't choose to participate in that scene." It's not a _scene_. It's a cultural state that you participate in simply by living in that society, and by saying you don't choose to participate, you're saying you don't believe rape culture exists, because you don't think it does. Just because someone isn't a rapist, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. By using it as a plot device as glossing it over as though it's something completely unimportant, it's telling young women that it isn't something they should bother about. It just happens. Shut it away in that little box in your mind. What a horrible, horrible thing to put in a book. I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe in authorial responsibility, especially when writing for young adults.

I don't know the details of AmazonCrossing. I picked this book from the books Amazon offers its Prime members every month, and I expected much, much better. This is worse than some of the self-published books I've read with no editors. It could easily have gone through another couple of edits with no ill effects, and that's just to the point I reached. I'm just talking about the general flow, sentence structure, etc. That's not content. I'm disappointed that Amazon would not only pick something like this to support, but apparently to publish. I have enjoyed other picks that they have made. I really hope that this is just a lapse in quality and judgement on their part.… (mere)