Location: United States
Member Since: March 01, 2014

aperry31

Smashwords book reviews by aperry31

  • Avra's God on July 12, 2014

    *I was offered a free copy of this book from the author in return for an honest review.* Even though she's a junior in college, Avra has never had a boyfriend, so when handsome, popular Cisco is interested in her--and even embraces her Christian faith--Avra is happier than she has ever been. However, although Cisco has good intentions, he is frustrated by the need for purity in their relationship and misses the sex life he had before Avra. Meanwhile, Avra's new friend Kallie is struggling with her father's abandonment and with the attraction she feels for Jesse, Cisco's best friend. Jesse writes songs that allow Kallie a glimpse of his soul, but he doesn't seem willing to give Kallie everything she needs, even though they connected from the first time they met. While Kallie is looking for God to help her, Jesse is hoping He'll stay out of his life. Avra is certain that God has the answers to all of their struggles--but will they let Him provide them? This is the first New Adult romance I've read--and I love the fact that it's a Christian story so that there aren't any sex scenes. I think Avra, Cisco, Kallie, and Jesse are all likeable characters and the reasons for their behavior are believable. However, they aren't quite as fully developed as I personally like--but that's likely due to the fact that the book is divided up into all 4 of their perspectives, thus limiting the amount of "page time" each character gets. Going along with that, I didn't always like the pacing of the book; we'd go from one character's point of view to the next very quickly, which didn't allow time to delve into some of the issues as much as I would have liked. For instance, there's a paragraph where Jesse is surrounded by girls, making Kallie jealous after she blew him off when he tried to kiss her (which we see from his perspective); immediately after that paragraph, he's giving her a CD with a song he wrote for her (which we see from her perspective). So, he's trying to fix things, but we don't see his thoughts at all beyond trying to make her jealous--and then he's suddenly trying to be nice and fix stuff. That makes things just seem a little abrupt and made the mood swings a little dizzying and the pacing was somewhat off in places. Additionally, the fact that Cisco kisses two girls, Jesse kisses three (and is kissed by a fourth), and Kallie dates someone besides Jesse in the middle of all of this, means there's a lot going on in this book, and the pacing isn't always the smoothest. There were times when the writing irritated me a little; it just seemed overwritten (for example, "her thick, dark hair arcing behind her to brush the bare skin between her jeans and her blouse"--seems like an overly complicated phrase). Overall, though, I liked the book and read it in one day because I wanted to see what was going to happen. I liked seeing the developing faith in and relationships with God as well as the romance.