First Love

Now & Forever #1

by Melissa Johns

Emily Stone has moved from her life in Texas to start over in New York. She left her friends and her father behind to be closer to her mother. She just wants to find happiness and maybe a few friends but when Eric Mason enters her life, she knows she wants more.

Eric has been raised to be a professional quarterback. His father has a plan and Eric isn’t allowed to stray off his path but the first day of his senior year, his eyes find Emily and he knows he won’t be the same again.

Struggling to keep a balance between school work, football and a social life, they find themselves falling in love with each other until the night of the Senior Prom when she learns the truth that Eric has been keeping secret from her. Will their love be able to remain strong?

Follow the paths of two different souls as they figure out the world together and find out what their future holds

Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Sports, High School, Contemporary, College, Sports Romance

126 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2012

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a great love story....the story did move quickly and the ending was abrupt, but I still really liked it. The only thing missing was an epilogue to explain what happens in the future. a little closure. I guess it leaves it open for a sequel.

[Rachel Abbe · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was nice and definitely up my alley, but the writing was horrific. There were too many errors to count and the dialogue of the book sounded completely unnatural. I'm seriously questioning whether or not anybody actually edited this book. There are no contractions whatsoever (such as I'm or I'll), which makes the dialogue sound in a sense robotic. There are also several grammatical errors, such as non-corresponding verb tenses within sentences, missing words, and even a few changes in the point of view of the book! One minute Emily is talking from her point of view in first person, which is the format for the whole book, but then the next minute the book is suddenly in third person. I know this may seem really critical because who cares about grammar, right? I usually don't, but the writing of this story was just exceptionally awful. Quite frankly, the story appeared to be written by a 6th grader. Overall, my frustration with the writing of the story trumped the quality of the story itself.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too simple, too sappy, and the characters seemed either too good to be true, or too stupid to be believable.

[Book Pusher · Rating 2 out of 5]

First Love was definitely a book that I really wanted to be good...but it fell short for me. I thought the book started off not too bad, but it almost felt like the entire story was in Fast Forward mode. I kind of felt as though so many things were being skipped over...and it kind of left me wondering and wanting. I'm a sucker for the details and I love a book that I can immerse myself in and really become a part of the lives of the characters. Unfortunately this wasn't one of those books. I thought the story line had such promise and potential and even the characters were great, but I felt they wanted to be more too. The story also had an extremely abrupt end with the promise of a 2nd, but I'm just not sure about another book in this series. Perhaps the 2nd book will slow down the pace, in which case I would probably LOVE it...but at this point, I just wanted more from First Love and really wasn't fulfilled.

http://bookpusher.com/?os_book=first-...

[Mim-Is-Reading · Rating 1 out of 5]

What in the world....?
This book needed A LOT of editing before publication. I spotted so many errors that the actual story began to fly over my head.
I was also not a fan of the over-description of the main character's swooning and sighing when she saw the guy, and it made me wonder whether a book can be "too romantic that it's unbelievable".
I eventually lost interest.
Could authors please stop capitalizing the first letter of terms of endearment like they're nouns? Unless "Baby" and "Gorgeous" is the nickname or real name of your character, it has no place being capitalized. Argh!

[Jessica *The Lovely Books*]

DNF

This was terrible. The story didn’t flow well, there were a lot of errors (which I can overlook if I really like a story), and it was cheesy. Like cringeworthy type of cheese.

Save your time on this one.

[Christan · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Love...everybody has one. My first love I will always remember. Melissa Johns captured first love perfectly.

Eric and Emily took me on an adventure. I love their relationship together. It's passionate and heart-felt. their were a good bit of grammatical errors in this book but other than that the book is great. it's very cute and perfect for a cold day. Short read but definitely worthy of your time.

[Cassie Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I felt like things went really fast.
And...I felt like either the author skipped the "getting to know you" or that there was none.
I felt as if the characters didn't really know each other, and so I didn't know them either.
So, I didn't like it.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is definitely the stereotypical teen romance novel and that would be the reason why i loved it so much. It was not only a quick and easy read but was a cute story about the love between the captin of the football team, (go figure!), and the schools new exchange student. Although the concept of the romance between these two was an excellent idea, it was not fully developed, or more so the main characters romance developed way too fast. It developed so fast that it made the story seem even more unrealistic than it already was and made you feel like you were missing several key parts and experiences of their relationship. The female main character, i forgot her name and as I agree with many others who have read this book, complained too much through out the story. She came across whinny and had little to no trust in her 'true love' rather than being a strong, trusting and a confident young woman. All qualities that many female readers love to see in the female main characters in the novels they read. The reason being, it shows both woman and men that even girls can kick some butt every now and then, whether it be physically beating the antagonist, (bad guy), or telling off the popular girl in school. So really having a strong and stoic female character allows the female audience to live vicariously through the characters as they tell off one of their arch enemies or punch them in the face when they deserve it. The only difference between the worlds in the stories we read and reality is the fact that when any character commits a negative action, they are almost always likely to get away with it, without any consequences. In this world, if you punch someone in the face or hurt them in general you are more than likely to receive a law suit in the mail the very next day. In this book, all the main characters would commit such negative actions but would not have to pay the price for doing so. This was another thing that made me annoyed at the story line and added to the unrealism of the story itself. But as i have said before, i enjoyed the book but was annoyed for several different reasons, as i explained above, several different times.
I do recommend this book to those of you out there that enjoy the cheesy, stereotypical, teen, romance novels like myself! HOPE YOU ENJOY THE BOOK! And i hope that this review was helpful for many!
Happy Reading!

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so I started this at 12 am because I couldn't sleep lol
I'm debating whether to give it a 3 or 3.5 stars!!
So it was a good fast read, but the only problem I had with is was that it was kind of fast.
Like Emily and Eric met eachother on the first day of school. Eric was a football player. They went on a date they somehow fell in love and went to prom together.
At prom they got into a fight because Eric lied about his past with Janice. Emily couldn't forgive him because he was her first love and he broke her heart.
They graduated bla bla bla then Emily finally knew that she couldn't stop thinking of Eric!
She decided to meet him at his college, he was surprised to see her and they got back together...
She found out later on that she was pregnant and he proposed lol
Cliché!!!
But over all it was cute even though it was an obvious although I really thought he would leave her after he knew that she was pregnant because his father will totally kill him ( he wanted them to break up so Eric would focus on his football career).

[Tessa Gallahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book but the story just moved a little to fast... one second she is walking into school and then the next she has a whole group of friends and a boyfriend. Like someone else said in there review that i read there was no getting to know you part., yea it said at dinner they talked about themselves and stuff but when I read a book I want to get to know the character MYSELF, not just know where she came from and why she moved. I also like it when the book is longer.. it was actually quite short and not like reagular books that are like 3 to 4 hundred page books.. I feel like it just went by too fast. Maybe the next book in the series will help with how I feel and make it better but I don't know. I will be reading the next one in the series because I really do need to know how Eric and Emily end up in life.

[naheeda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading it like 1/4 of the way through because the wording was just KILLING me and it was REALLY awkward and I just kept thinking "Oh god, kill me" every time the author used "I will", "We will", etc instead of "I'll" or "We'll" and the whole situation just was really un-realistic and I hated it. I probably would've like the book much more if it wasn't for the awkward writing.

[Danielle Calabrese · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars! I really liked most of the book getting to know the characters and seeing them fall in love...other parts I just liked. The ending was a little abrupt for me. I was really hoping to see how they handled the situation they find themselves in. Maybe there will be a sequel?

[L · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would have been a solid 4.5 stars if it weren't for the abrupt ending. Is there supposed to be a sequel? Overall nice ya romance. The characters are very likable and easy to relate to. I really like this book hope there's another book to round out their story.

[Rita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ummm. Many errors, please get a spell editor. And a way of writing so flat. This book is just a succession of events, there isn´t description of feelings, thoughts, etc. Then after reading the reviews of upcoming books in this series definitely not going to read.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

The majority of this book was very enjoyable but the last half or so of the book felt rushed to me. The ending was very abrupt and left something to be desired.

[Amanda Merkord · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute quick read!!

[Girl9698 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Can't wait for Everlasting Love!!(:

[J Kiwibooknerd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a lovely sweet book about first love and first everything..... It was a smooth and easy read and I immediately fell in love with the characters. I cant wait to read the next book.

[Sharon Pointon · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love a good love story

[Paulina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gustó el libro. Tiene muchas idas y venidas, pero entretiene bastante.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a little while to get into this story. The writing is a little stilted and there were quite a few errors. Normally, I can overlook typos and errors if I am really enjoying a story but there were some places where 3 or 4 extra words were added in and didn't make sense in a sentence. I found myself re-reading the paragraph a few times to try to make sense of it and it took me out of the story a bit.

That being said, this is a 4 part story that I believe spans quite a bit of time. This is part one where Emily and Eric meet after Emily moves from Texas to Buffalo New York to live with her mom. Eric is the star quarterback and all the girls have tried to get a date, but he only has eyes for Emily from the moment he sees her. Eric's Dad wants him to focus on football only and makes no bones about his feelings.

I thought that Emily's reaction to what happened was a bit over the top, but I do get it was more the principle than anything. I don't want to give spoilers, so I won't say anymore about the story except it does end on a cliffhanger, but all 4 book are out.

[Nerissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Badly written. Extremely badly. Wooden conversations. Emotions are not felt. Immature characters - as in, not developed well and lacking emotion and childish reactions.

WOrst of all is it needs more editing and proof reading more than any book i've ever read. Normally I can over look it, but this was BAD.

[Annmarie · Rating 3 out of 5]

No cheating in this book but he lies about sleeping with his ex girlfriend when they were dating a year before he met the h and they break up but get back. Anyway it’s a cliff. High school to college age characters and no everyone is legal age.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.. Dude cedes power to ow\his prior GF by keeping secret\Lying\Betrayal...almost loses her,they make up a she loses V w out protection \preggo😜

[Vfc · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot subject myself to juvenile, melodramatic romances.

[Naomi Morrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book really interesting, it only took me a day to read. I’m the type of person that’s really into those mushy high school books and thought this was a really cute one. The grammar in it was quite horrendous at times and I found myself actually having to fix it in my mind, I couldn’t really understand what the author was trying to say. Unsure if it’s because it’s a kindle book that I was reading or not, either way I still thought the story line was great and I would recommend to a few of my friends (who like these kinds of books) to read because I know that it had meaning to it and it was a heartfelt story.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy about it was how fast everything seemed to go. She was in high school, just starting her senior year…at a new school, and then all of a sudden she has a boyfriend within her first week and she has these really close friends. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really great to think that could actually happen, but it just seemed to go a bit too fast for me.

I really liked the way that the author helped you love or hate the characters. You don’t really hear much of the step mum, we just know that we shouldn’t like her, which is something I quite like, the way that we are told that she’s just a horrible person, and we won’t get to know anything about her because she isn’t part of Emily’s life anymore. I really did not like her dad, and I think that’s what John’s wanted. She didn’t want us to like her dad I don’t think, because he seems like a cruel person, and he doesn’t seem to like anything his daughter does. I fell in love with her mother, and I think that’s what was meant to happen. I think we were also meant to feel sorry for the mother, because I definitely did. I felt like she was really lonely and that she was so delighted to have her daughter home. You want her to meet someone throughout the whole book.

The main characters :
Eric – I really liked him, and I could see why she was falling in love with him, he had this mysterious feel about him and you could tell that she wanted to be with him. Even the description of when they first laid eyes on each other, you knew there was going to be something between them. (without sounding silly…of course we knew there was going to be!!).

Emily – I loved Emily’s character and how strong willed she seemed to be. When her and Eric broke up, I don’t know about everyone else, but I felt horrible for both of them. The way that the author portrayed it, you could tell that they were both heartbroken, and I really liked how the mothers were connected and how they seemed to have spoken of it. When she falls pregnant, they both make an extremely mature decision, to keep the baby. I know that if I was in their position then I wouldn’t want to be keeping a baby at that age.

She may not be a main character but Janice is another character that I want to comment on, she really aggravated me. I really liked how Johns shows off just how horrible of a person she is, and how there are people out there like that. To start with, Johns seems to make it out that High School is just like one big happy family, and I’m really glad that she – in the end – shows that there are some people, that just will not like you.

This is the main reason I enjoyed this book, it seems to have thrown so much at this one young girl and it shows you each and every way that she managed to regain herself every time.

[Karla Mae (Reads and Thoughts) · Rating 3 out of 5]

'You never forget your first love, even if you don’t end up with them. This tale will remind you of your story'

The preface of the book seems to say it all. Honestly, stories about First Love fascinate me. I always feel happy and giddy thinking that they fall in love for the very first time and hopefully they will all end up well, though some twists and turns are always bound to happen. They said that first love will always be memorable, personally, I don’t really know. I may have loved certain people but I don't know if I really do fall in love with them.

This story, First Love is one of the cutest I think I've read with this topic on hand. The title already speaks for itself, for the story is about encountering a girl's first love and the twists and turns that comes together with it...

Moving to Buffalo, New York was the least expected thing Emily would’ve done. But with her dad marrying again and her new step-mom being not so nice, Emily decided its time to spend time with her mom in New York. The first day of her senior year she sees Eric and Eric sees her. Emily never had a boyfriend and Eric's not really allowed to have a girlfriend because football is the most important thing at the moment according to his dad. But falling in love can't be stopped. They grow closer and closer to each other and they both have to find ways to make it all work out.

Reading Emily and Eric's story seems like a fresh breathe of air for me. I always find myself so absorbed on stories like this maybe because I'm a sucker for happy endings or maybe I just like the idea that even a book makes me swoon or I'm just really a hopeful romantic.

The story was fast-paced and pretty short so I find myself almost finishing it at one sitting. The story goes well for me until the end comes. It seems that it was pretty rushed and I was really surprised it ended that way, it was just not enough for me; I really wanted to know what would happen next (who wouldn’t want to know right?!).

As I've said, it was a pretty cute book and after reading it I said to myself that I'll probably read its sequel and even the third book that I heard was on the process. In all, it was a pretty sweet story about finding your first love.

[Yunita1987 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buku ini menceritakan kisah yang sangat romantis...ampe iri kalau membayangkannya.
Gimana gak iri ya...tokoh cowok yang selalu dinanti nih secara dia mau bertanggung jawab utk semua yg terjadi bahkan sampai harus melepaskan cita2nya dan jg keluarganya.

Ok lanjut. Ini kisah berawal dari seorang gadis yg memutuskan untuk hidup bersama ibunya (sprtinya idenya berawal dari Twilight) nih. Gadis itu bernama Emily. Dan dia masuk kesebuah sekolah SMA dan berkenalan dengan Sam yg akhirnya menjadi sahabatnya.
Nah cerita gak akan seru klo gak ada lawan mainnya dong. So munculah tokoh pria bernama Eric yg dikenal keren tapi gak punya pacar akibat terlalu fokus pada footballnya.
Tapi akhirnya jatuh cinta pada Emily.

Ok dimulailah kisah2 asmara mereka. Dan mungkin agak dewasa kalo sampai terjadi dinegara sendiri.
Dan disaat prom night dikarenakan Emily yg mgkn otaknya agak kurang waras dan ingin menyerahkan kegadisanya kepada sang kekasih. Tapi belum kejadian krn Eric yg sebelumnya punya mantan kekasih dan ketauan bahwa Eric sebelumnya pernah melakukanya bersama sang mantan dan ini membuat Emily sedih.
Sakit hati ini terjadi sampai mereka berpisah dan mulai masuk kuliah.

Tapi karena ini cinta mendalam. Akhirnya mereka bertemu dan sadar klo mereka gak akan pernah berpisah. So cinta yg semakin mendalam dan membuat mereka akhirnya melakukan yg sebenarnya tdk pantas utk dilakukan apalagi mereka masih remaja. Hingga Hal yg ditakutkanpun terjadi...Emily hamil dan selesai...:-)

ok deh secara keseluruhan buku ini bagus tapi aq berpikir apakah didunia nyata hal seperti ini masih bisa terjadi ? bisa bertemu kekasih yang seperti ini.
btw aq masih bingung sih dengan buku ini, sebenarnya apakah akhirnya hanya seperti itu aja atau karena aq yg dapat versi beda aja?

tapi terlepas dari itu semua... aq suka ceritanya walaupun masih ada yg mengganjal setelah baca kisah cinta yang satu ini. kisah cinta anak SMA yg terlihat agak terlalu dewasa atau mgkn sudah dewasa...:-D

*maklumlah yg baca masih lugu banget...kwkwkwk
btw aq mau dong pesan 1 cowok yg seperti Eric nih...:-D

[Forever YA Fiction · Rating 3 out of 5]

We love the whole idea behind this story and were really excited to read it. We hate to start a review with negative comments but we think we should get it over with so we can focus on the positive right after. We hate to judge a book on the grammar unless it effects the story. It was so hard to get into this book because we kept finding mistakes and over used words. For example the word “as.” We all agreed that after a while we began to count how many times the author used the word “as” instead of focusing on the story. Description was also needed. The story took place in Buffalo yet we never hear about the cold weather or snow. Our other issue was the dialogue it felt too mechanical at times. Emily is supposed to be from Houston yet she has so accent nor does anyone ever comment about her accent. There was also no emotion described besides her heart melting. When Emily breaks up with Eric there is no huge melt down that takes days or even weeks to deal with it. For a girl who was so in love and needy of Eric she was too quick to walk away from him over something really silly. Now for the good: Half way through the book we started to ignore the short sentences and hardly any description because we really started to care for Eric and Emily’s relationship. We agreed no matter how much the little things bothered us we could not put the book down and this is why we gave this book 3 stars instead of 2. We love that Eric’s favorite color is red, and Emily makes sure to use this color to gets the things she wants. It also helps that the steamy scenes between Eric and Emily were hot! Eric can easily become one of our boyfriends of the week. The part of the story that did keep us engaged also inspired us to read the next two books. We truly believe if the author would have developed this story a little more it would have been a five star book.