Title: Forever Mine
Author: Elizabeth Reyes
Blurb:
Seventeen-year old Sarah’s life is turned upside down when her single mom is sent to jail. She’s forced to move, leaving behind everything she’s ever known, including her best friend Sydney. Lost and bitter in a new school, her one goal is to save money and move back home. Then she meets Angel Moreno.
Enigmatic but gorgeous, Angel is almost too good to be true. Except for one thing, his archaic belief that guys and girls can never be “just friends”. The problem? Sarah’s best friend Sydney is not a girl.
With their unexpected romance intensifying to places neither ever experienced, how long can Sarah keep Angel in the dark about the guy waiting for her back home?
Links:
Forever Mine on Goodreads
Forever Mine on Amazon
Elizabeth Reyes' Website
Kala's Review:
This book was a huge disappointment. I've heard good things about this author, but after this book I'm hesitant to try anything else by her. The only redeeming qualities are the side characters, which are also the only reason I may cave and read another of her books.
Angel (the male lead) is an insecure controlling asshole. I don't care if he's gorgeous, he has major issues which are (yet again) romanticized in a young adult romance. He makes an off-hand comment at the start of the novel about how he doesn't think men and women can be friends. From that point on, Sarah is petrified to tell him about her best friend Sydney (who is male). Towards the end, after Angel finds out about Sydney, he still insists that Sarah tell him every single time she talks to Sydney on the phone. And Sarah accepts that, because we don't want to push Angel's patience too far! We must give up our friends for our boyfriends if they object to them for completely arbitrary reasons!
Sarah (the female lead) is just plain weak, boring, and stupid. She is so devoid of personality that I can't even think of one positive thing to say about her. She lets Angel control her, and in fact, embraces it. There is a specific line, that I can't find right now, where she flat out says she "embraces" Angel's controlling behavior. She also talks about how she loves how possessive Angel is and she wishes she'd had a man to take care of her when she was younger. There is definitely no thoughts about being a secure, independent woman here!
The whole pervy coach storyline was ridiculous. I was hoping that the author was making it so obvious and over the top in order to throw us for a loop and make him actually a decent person, but instead she just went with the obvious. And Sarah, knowing this guy is a huge perv, keeps doing stupid things to spend time alone with her. The "climax" scene at the end where she goes running with him in the wilderness was so dumb. Sarah is the epitome of the TSTL heroine (TO STUPID TO LIVE!).
I also just didn't feel any spark or connection with Sarah or Angel. Both were so wooden and cardboard and boring. Sarah was, like I said before, devoid of any personality. Outside of his possessive and controlling behavior, Angel was too. The romance was so blah and boring as well. I like characters I can feel something for, and these two were not it.
I found Alex and Sofie (Angel's siblings) to be far more interesting, but they're not around nearly enough.
Another major issues I had with the book was the random changing of perspective that happened without any clear chapter break or break in the storyline. We would switch from Sarah to Angel in the middle of a scene and I found it jarring and awkward.
1.5 stars.
Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/430292237
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