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Awakenings
Sean Morgan is wealthy, good-looking, and smart, so the world should be his oyster, but nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Sean’s the one stuck in the tiny shell his rich, conservative family forced him into. He’d love to break away from law school—and his girlfriend—to pursue life as a maybe-gay photographer, but he doesn't have the guts… until he meets sexy bartender-slash-artist Adam while on vacation with Lindsey.
His connection with Adam convinces Sean he needs to live a more authentic life, but how does his heart’s desire measure up against his family’s expectations? It isn’t in Sean to rock the boat, but Adam isn’t going to wait around forever. If Sean doesn’t stand up for who he is and what he wants, he’ll miss out on what could be his only shot at a happy ending.
His connection with Adam convinces Sean he needs to live a more authentic life, but how does his heart’s desire measure up against his family’s expectations? It isn’t in Sean to rock the boat, but Adam isn’t going to wait around forever. If Sean doesn’t stand up for who he is and what he wants, he’ll miss out on what could be his only shot at a happy ending.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 5, 2012
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46 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 1, 2016
2 stars!
Puh - finishing this book felt like an ordeal sometimes – which actually can’t be such a good thing. But I did manage to finish it and I want to say a few words about what I enjoyed and what I just didn’t like. So let’s go:
Sean Michael is a good-looking young man. He has a beautiful girlfriend, a nice house and is on the way to become a successful lawyer, just like his father. Everything seems perfect at a first glance. However, Sean isn’t feeling like himself these days and even tends to be a little depressed. In order to bring him back to his usual self, his girlfriend is taking him to a vacation in Miami. After a fight, he finds himself in a bar of the hotel and suddenly he lays his eyes on Adam, an artist who is working part time in the hotel bar.
And suddenly we have the reason for his unhappiness - Sean finds out that he is gay. All it takes for this realization is a conversation with Adam and he immediately decides that he has to finish his relationship with his girlfriend, drop out of law school and leave for Miami for good. If you think that this is highly unrealistic, just wait for the rest!
When his family finds out that he wants to drop out of law school, they are putting him under strict surveillance. They not only force him to work out, to eat healthy and to go to therapy, they even go as far as taking away all his possibilities to communicate with the outside world. And Sean isn’t about to revolt against this treatment, he’s just enduring it.
Honestly, this part of the story made me furious. I don’t want to put any spoilers in this review, so I’m trying to keep it simple. The second part of the story was a lot better, but still not very enjoyable. I just felt too annoyed with Sean to really care about what happened to him. I guess I can’t really recommend this book and I’m always sorry to give bad ratings, but I just can’t find many positive things to say. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I can’t find any. So let’s stop this here.
Puh - finishing this book felt like an ordeal sometimes – which actually can’t be such a good thing. But I did manage to finish it and I want to say a few words about what I enjoyed and what I just didn’t like. So let’s go:
Sean Michael is a good-looking young man. He has a beautiful girlfriend, a nice house and is on the way to become a successful lawyer, just like his father. Everything seems perfect at a first glance. However, Sean isn’t feeling like himself these days and even tends to be a little depressed. In order to bring him back to his usual self, his girlfriend is taking him to a vacation in Miami. After a fight, he finds himself in a bar of the hotel and suddenly he lays his eyes on Adam, an artist who is working part time in the hotel bar.
And suddenly we have the reason for his unhappiness - Sean finds out that he is gay. All it takes for this realization is a conversation with Adam and he immediately decides that he has to finish his relationship with his girlfriend, drop out of law school and leave for Miami for good. If you think that this is highly unrealistic, just wait for the rest!
When his family finds out that he wants to drop out of law school, they are putting him under strict surveillance. They not only force him to work out, to eat healthy and to go to therapy, they even go as far as taking away all his possibilities to communicate with the outside world. And Sean isn’t about to revolt against this treatment, he’s just enduring it.
Honestly, this part of the story made me furious. I don’t want to put any spoilers in this review, so I’m trying to keep it simple. The second part of the story was a lot better, but still not very enjoyable. I just felt too annoyed with Sean to really care about what happened to him. I guess I can’t really recommend this book and I’m always sorry to give bad ratings, but I just can’t find many positive things to say. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I can’t find any. So let’s stop this here.
February 14, 2012
I only made it to 8% - this looks to be another unedited book from DSP. Ugh.
February 25, 2012
This review was originally written for Hearts on Fire Reviews and can also be found there.
I always try to find something good about a book, because I really don’t like handing out one star ratings. That is mostly the reason why this one got two stars from me.
Sean is a guy whose choices have been dictated by his family and his girlfriend. She is all but planning a wedding while Sean is feeling trapped with every aspect of his life. When they go on a vacation together, Sean finally finds what has been missing in Adam the artist, while his girlfriend shows her true colors.
I honestly loved the idea of these characters but couldn’t handle the way they were actually shown in the story. The only part of the story I sort of could go through without forcing myself to, happened toward the end of the book and was written nicely, the rest… Well, let’s start from the top.
I hated Sean almost from the beginning. His relationship with his girlfriend was pretty much one-sided, but relationships don’t come to that point out of the blue. Sean just didn’t have any courage whatsoever to take his life into his own hands, instead he allowed everyone to just push him around. Then he cheats on his girlfriend with Adam and doesn’t even have the decency to be straight with her and tell her everything right away as it is. Instead the tale drags on page after page where the girlfriend turns into a fairy tale villain and Sean’s whole family into characters more likely to be found in Alice from Wonderland rather than in a contemporary romance. In fact, most of this story is either overly sweet or completely unrealistic. I’m not sure I’ve ever read about a romance blossoming this fast or about heavy relationship issues rising in a span of a month.
Adam was a likeable character, seemed like a good soul and a very nice man, but even he had his moments which would have seriously ticked me off in any other book. In this one, forcing someone to come out after only a month with blackmail, was just another strike next to many and it had maybe half the impact. However, the way Sean handled the situation with his parents not only showed him as immature and incompetent, it had my jaw dropping because I just couldn’t believe any sane person would stand for it. It really bordered on abuse, except he was a grown man and could have prevented it within a heartbeat. Then the privacy thing his mother so severely violated… I’m almost positive I wouldn’t have talked to my mother for quite a while after something like that. I won’t even talk about the way his father acted.
The contrast between Sean’s and Adam’s family was very nice and it is a plus for the story, but there were just too many things I didn’t like at all about it and honestly wish I never took the time to read this book. It is harsh, but I’m sure others have a different opinion and might find something positive about this story, or at least more positive things that I could come up with.
I always try to find something good about a book, because I really don’t like handing out one star ratings. That is mostly the reason why this one got two stars from me.
Sean is a guy whose choices have been dictated by his family and his girlfriend. She is all but planning a wedding while Sean is feeling trapped with every aspect of his life. When they go on a vacation together, Sean finally finds what has been missing in Adam the artist, while his girlfriend shows her true colors.
I honestly loved the idea of these characters but couldn’t handle the way they were actually shown in the story. The only part of the story I sort of could go through without forcing myself to, happened toward the end of the book and was written nicely, the rest… Well, let’s start from the top.
I hated Sean almost from the beginning. His relationship with his girlfriend was pretty much one-sided, but relationships don’t come to that point out of the blue. Sean just didn’t have any courage whatsoever to take his life into his own hands, instead he allowed everyone to just push him around. Then he cheats on his girlfriend with Adam and doesn’t even have the decency to be straight with her and tell her everything right away as it is. Instead the tale drags on page after page where the girlfriend turns into a fairy tale villain and Sean’s whole family into characters more likely to be found in Alice from Wonderland rather than in a contemporary romance. In fact, most of this story is either overly sweet or completely unrealistic. I’m not sure I’ve ever read about a romance blossoming this fast or about heavy relationship issues rising in a span of a month.
Adam was a likeable character, seemed like a good soul and a very nice man, but even he had his moments which would have seriously ticked me off in any other book. In this one, forcing someone to come out after only a month with blackmail, was just another strike next to many and it had maybe half the impact. However, the way Sean handled the situation with his parents not only showed him as immature and incompetent, it had my jaw dropping because I just couldn’t believe any sane person would stand for it. It really bordered on abuse, except he was a grown man and could have prevented it within a heartbeat. Then the privacy thing his mother so severely violated… I’m almost positive I wouldn’t have talked to my mother for quite a while after something like that. I won’t even talk about the way his father acted.
The contrast between Sean’s and Adam’s family was very nice and it is a plus for the story, but there were just too many things I didn’t like at all about it and honestly wish I never took the time to read this book. It is harsh, but I’m sure others have a different opinion and might find something positive about this story, or at least more positive things that I could come up with.
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January 9, 2012The story of 28 years old Sean awakening to his gay self was nice and well-plotted. Sean didn’t jump out of bed one day saying, I’m gay, be right with that, but he went through a self-questioning process, whose output could have been also his falling into depression. Sean knew there was something not right in his relationship with his girlfriend, he knew he didn’t want to end law school and enter the family firm, but he needed a push towards the right direction, or better, to be pushed out of the common track.
A weekend at Miami Beach and the meeting with Adam is more than a push. Adam is a dream man, model-beauty, nice and friendly, good upbringing and with a nice income. Aside from being a man, he would be the perfect fiancé for Sean’s conservative family, but being gay Sean thinks is not an option for him. And so when he realizes that all his discontent could be solved by acknowledging his desire for Adam AND his artistic side (and so a more creative chosen career), he also thinks that he has to break his connections with his previous life. He will have a surprise from his family, maybe not all of them, but it will be a good surprise.
My feeling for this story is mostly good, maybe I feel like the author was a little rushed with the real ending, i.e. when she dealt with Sean’s relationship with his family and their reaction to Sean’s news and then with Sean and Adam’s relationship start-up, wherelse she decided to give a further look into their future life. The last 3 chapters of the novels (50 pages out of 276 total) are almost a story of their own, like one of those novellas authors write about some of their favourite characters, to give the fans something more about them. It’s an original choice, and for sure it gives a sure stamp to the love story, but as I said, I would have not minded for Sean to deal a little more with his family after they found out about him, and instead he let the bomb drop and took away… probably a wise choice, considering it was not an easy situation to deal with, and maybe give it “space” will serve also to dilute the tension, but I feel like there are open questions there.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613723253/?...
A weekend at Miami Beach and the meeting with Adam is more than a push. Adam is a dream man, model-beauty, nice and friendly, good upbringing and with a nice income. Aside from being a man, he would be the perfect fiancé for Sean’s conservative family, but being gay Sean thinks is not an option for him. And so when he realizes that all his discontent could be solved by acknowledging his desire for Adam AND his artistic side (and so a more creative chosen career), he also thinks that he has to break his connections with his previous life. He will have a surprise from his family, maybe not all of them, but it will be a good surprise.
My feeling for this story is mostly good, maybe I feel like the author was a little rushed with the real ending, i.e. when she dealt with Sean’s relationship with his family and their reaction to Sean’s news and then with Sean and Adam’s relationship start-up, wherelse she decided to give a further look into their future life. The last 3 chapters of the novels (50 pages out of 276 total) are almost a story of their own, like one of those novellas authors write about some of their favourite characters, to give the fans something more about them. It’s an original choice, and for sure it gives a sure stamp to the love story, but as I said, I would have not minded for Sean to deal a little more with his family after they found out about him, and instead he let the bomb drop and took away… probably a wise choice, considering it was not an easy situation to deal with, and maybe give it “space” will serve also to dilute the tension, but I feel like there are open questions there.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1613723253/?...
March 22, 2012
OK I was very conflicted with this book, at the start the internal diatribe annoyed me and it left me thinking 'shut the hell up!!' But as I got further into the story I understood more of what it was for. it allowed the reader to see what was really going on in his confused head. I did find myself saying to the book 'OK grow a pair' and the bike incident was obvious and predictable. having said that I thought the way it was portrayed, as in the recovery and issues when he woke, were realistic in a way you don't often see injury recovery shown in a book. By the end of the book I found I had read a really sweet story of two men finding themselves in a very honest tale of expectation and faith.
This book was reviewed for Musings of a bookworm
This book was reviewed for Musings of a bookworm
January 11, 2012
Although, I have read many romance novels most tend to focus on one aspect of a very complex subject--love. Awakenings is one of the few novels I've read that invites the reader to see love from many angles. Awakenings, reminded me of so many emotions I have felt in the past and could not share concerning being true to your self, falling in love and the amazing awakening that can take place during those experiences. Awakenings was entertaining, heart-wrenching, and at the same time a beautiful example of the crazy journey one takes to awaken to a new life filled with opportunity and freedom. This is obviously the first of many great novels from the very talented, Tara Larson.
February 13, 2012
I really liked the story, especially Adam. I liked Sean when he wasn't around his family. What the hell was that? He's 28, not 15! I think it would have been a 4 star for me, except the constant use of italics drove me crazy! I thought at first that maybe it was that way because it's a galley book, but it seemed way too planned out for that. Way too distracting to have to emphasize words in my head every single time people were talking or thinking. Good story though, even if it got a little soap opera-y at times.
January 16, 2012
I'm sort of conflicted. Before I start, I am glad I read it and I definitely recommend it. Sometimes the plot felt a little jumpy, and I was sick of the main character's whining at times. I would have put my foot down a LOT sooner than he did.
When I read it, I was looking for hot, fluffy fun, and this book had that. I'm glad I read it and I might even do it again :)
Recommended.
Plus Good
When I read it, I was looking for hot, fluffy fun, and this book had that. I'm glad I read it and I might even do it again :)
Recommended.
Plus Good
January 10, 2012
i loved this book! i was drawn in with sean's story...and then he meets adam. adam is so exotic, titillating, and hot. poor sean didn't have a chance. he just got sucked in, let it happen, discovered himself...and good for him!
i didn't want the love story to end. will there be a sequel? i hope so! it's definitely a 'goodread'.
i didn't want the love story to end. will there be a sequel? i hope so! it's definitely a 'goodread'.
not-for-me
May 8, 2013Tbnt seechris review for why
July 8, 2012
This book could have been good, with editing and no pov mashup.
September 11, 2012
Such a good story with the 'following your dreams' aspect and not giving in to pressure from friends or family about what you truly want out of life. Enjoyed it.
February 9, 2012
I loved it!
April 26, 2012
Many times I wasn't so sure they would make it but alas they did. Very enjoyable story.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews