ARC Review: Breathe Into Me by Sara Fawkes

General information:
Title: Breathe Into Me
Author: Sara Fawkes
Publisher: St. Martin's Press 
Genre: New Adult
Series?: Stand alone
Ending: HEA
Pages: 288

Blurb: How did my life get so broken?  It’s a question Lacey St. James asks herself every day.  Stuck raising her little brother in a trailer park while she works a dead end job at a grocery store, she has a stalker exboyfriend, a bad reputation, and no way out.
And then, she meets Everett, who changes her entire existence.

Everett is an outsider who’s housesitting his family’s mansion off the coast, and for reasons Lacey can’t understand, he’s completely transfixed by her. He seems determined to show her that life can offer more than she’d ever hoped for, if only she believes in herself.  She desperately yearns to trust him, but what happens when she finds out that everything he’s told her is a lie?







I feel like I must warn you. I don't mean to sound like the Lemony Snicket books - but this book is most definitely not a feel good book. It's ugly and difficult and pretty much highlights everyone's greatest character flaws. Does that make it a bad book? No.

"“You seem eager to get rid of me.” “Maybe.” There was no conviction in the word. It had been a long time since I’d just talked to a boy like this, and it was nicer than I cared to admit. Most were after only one thing, which made the game old and depressing. Everett had come to my rescue in the bar, however, something that deserved more than the cold shoulder. Unfortunately, old habits die hard.
“Why?” He lifted one arm and took a dramatic sniff. “Do I smell?”"

Lacey hasn't had the most easiest life. After her father died she, her mother and 4 year old brother moved into her grandmothers trailer at a trailer park. She has a horrible relationship with her grandmother and her mother is nothing but a useless drunk. A slew of horrible and even more terrible guys have come and gone in the last couple of years and when we first meet Lacey in chapter 1, she is with the worst of them all; Macon.

The first two chapters are very troubling and didn't make me feel very good. Honestly, I wanted to smack Lacey with all the rotten salmon in the world. Why in the world would you even want to be with a guy like that? During one of the outbursts from Macon, she meets Everett.

Everett is an interesting character. He seems decent, but I was suspicious of him and thought he may not be all who he seems to be. You'll have to read it yourself to find out if I was right. Overall, I liked Everett, but I do think that Sara Fawkes wants to have the exremely horrible and abusive a-holes in one corner and the perfect can do no wrong love interest in the other corner. A lot of the guys in this book are massive jerks and Everett just seems to be a little too perfect during most of the book. Understandebly, Lacey has trust issues and has a hard time trusting that Everett is not out to use and hurt her. I think the idea is that we as readers MUST understand that he really is trustworthy and that's why it's all a little too much of the goodness. It makes Everett appear less than human and that was one of the things that bothered me.

"“you’re a tough nut to crack.” I gave him a bemused stare. Pot, meet kettle."

Lacey herself was an interesting main character. I struggled with her sometimes - as the beginning is not the only time I'd liked to have slapped her silly. She doesn't really make the best choices in life. But she does have a very hard day to day life - having to do it all on her own. She also has some issues from her past that she hasn't really worked through. She seemes a bit overly dramatic at times and I just found that I sometimes had a hard time connecting to Lacey. It was nice to see her take steps to try and better her life.

This book has some nice secondary characters. Horrible people like Macon and former friend Ashley and nice people like Clare, Trent, Cherise and Andrew.

The writing style of the book is perfectly fine, and for the most part I liked reading it. It got better as the story moved along, but I never reached a level of loving it. I'm not entirely sure if it's due to the characters, the setting of the story itself. I don't mind some struggles or darkness in my books, but this book really is chock-full of them and sometimes it felt like the story was drowning a bit in all the misery.

Overall, I liked reading this book and I think that readers who love new adult books and don't mind a bit - well.. a lot - of darkness to their story will love this book.

“Never be ashamed to go your own path. Sure as hell ain’t easy. I’ll tell you that, but it makes life worth living.” 

ARC Review: If only by A. J. Pine

General information:
Title: If Only
Author: A.J. Pine (Amy Pine)
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Embrace)
Release Date: March 24th 2014
Pages: 250
Genre: New Adult
Series?: Stand Alone
Ending: HEA


Blurb: It's been two years since twenty-year-old Jordan had a boyfriend—which means it's been forever since she, well, you know. But now she’s off to spend her junior year in Aberdeen, Scotland, the perfect place to stop waiting for Mr. Right and just enjoy Mr. Right Now.

Sexy, sweet (and possible player) Griffin may be her perfect, no-strings-attached match. He’s fun, gorgeous, and makes her laugh. So why can’t she stop thinking about Noah who, minutes after being trapped together outside the train’s loo, kisses Jordan like she’s never been kissed before? Never mind his impossible blue eyes, his weathered, annotated copy of The Great Gatsby (total English-major porn)…oh, and his girlfriend.

Jordan knows everything this year has an expiration date. Aberdeen is supposed to be about fun rather than waiting for life to happen. But E. M. Forster, Shakespeare, and mistletoe on Valentine’s Day make her reconsider what love is and how far she’s willing to go for the right guy.

"There is a little known truth that a two-year dry spell can earn a girl her virginity back" 

The story starts with Jordan on a train to Scotland for a semester abroad. I really liked that this book takes place in Europe for once. You jump right into the story and honestly, I was hooked from the start.
I liked Jordan. She seems normal and down to earth and it was fun to see her struggle to talk to boys and to try and open herself up a little more.

“I regain my composure, ready for my wittiest retort. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Or, maybe I’ll opt for not even close to witty…”

Anyhoo, back to the train. Just as she is settling in for a long ride, she suddenly get's company from 'man whore' Griffin. Conversation and jokes fly around and I really liked Griffin. He truly is who he says he is, is honest and doesn't play games with anybody - including Jordan herself. Jordan is happy with her newly found company. But then she needs to go to the bathroom and literally runs into other hottie, Noah.
The way it's written, you could really feel the chemistry between them and the scene that they meet is probably one of my favorite scenes from the book. Personally, I was on team Noah from the start.

Jordan is sent to Scotland with some advice from her best friend Sam:

“Picture this year like an alternate reality. A parallel universe. Your instinct has always been to wait, to be careful, to be sure. You don’t have time for that in Scotland. You only have time to enjoy, to live. See what it would be like to go against your instinct. Live a little, Brooks. You might enjoy it.” 

And that is exactly what she sets out to do. I'm not going to say anything more about the plot as I don't want to ruin it. But I'll guarantee you, after a very short period of time you will be in love with both Noah and Griffin.

This book is a debut novel for author Amy Pine and what a debut it is! I really enjoyed this book. The setting is different from most NAs, the writing is good and witty, the characters are well-rounded but not perfect. The book does involve a certain amount of heart ache and does hold great potential to make you cry. It's isn't a perfect love story. It's story about people who make very real mistakes. One thing I loved about this book is that neither of them has some deep dark past that they are running away from and when they meet each other everything is fixed - it's just a story about regular people who are growing up and finding their true self. The book is moderately sexy and leans to angsty for a large part of the story.

The secondary characters in this book were nice. I liked Jordan's roommate - Elaina. Though they did seem to immediately jump into a friendship that's like they've known each other since birth and sometimes she was a bit too 'hard on' Jordan for my taste. There's also Samm her best friend from back home, who doesn't really feature in the book outside of the occasional phone call.

All in all, it was a really entertaining read and definitely a book I would recommend to any reader who enjoys NA books. This was one of my favorite books from the genre I've read so far. I'm just a sucker for these stories that don't evolve around abuse or death or other things that most NA books seem to contain and have a happy ending. If you do to, than this is a must-read!