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126 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 27, 2013
I received this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Honestly I was not expecting to love this story as much as I did. I rarely read shorter novels because I like to read complete stories, and I assumed that could not be done in under 300 pages. My mother constantly tells me how wrong I am about this, and, as usual, she was right. Lol
When the story begins, Loraine is about 8 or 9 years old and she meets her brothers best friend Isaiah who is a year older than her; but by the time the story ends, they are old enough to start having children of their own. And not once did I feel like this book jumped around too much. Somehow the author managed to pack the entire first portion of Loraine's life into less than 200 pages so now I know short novels can tell a complete story when well written.
Just in case you are afraid that the romance is either non-existent or too cheesy because this is an inspirational novel, I can ease your worries there. This book was just as romantic as any other sweet romance that I have read. These two people have loved each other since they were children, and there was just something so endearing about the way they loved one another. Isaiah made some pretty dumb moves when they were in highschool, but that just felt real. Who doesn't remember that awkward feeling when the boy you could have sworn liked you the last time you two were alone together ignored you the next day? That is so frustrating and so teenage. I loved it! They were not these perfect kids who never did anything wrong, but they also weren't the rebellious teens who did everything they could to tick their parents off. They felt like who I was at their age, and I really liked seeing myself reflected back at me in the pages of a book for once. They were playful and sarcastic too, and I always enjoy that.
I also love the way Loraine handled her relationship with Isiah. Whenever he started behaving strangely she called him out on it, but not in a harsh way. She was such a lady in the way she handled her self. She waited until he was no longer around to allow her insecurities and doubt to creep out, but around him she was always confident in her self-worth.
I am kind of making it sound like Isiah is a jerk in this review, but he was far from it. He made some very teenage boy mistakes, and he didn't treat Loraine the way that she wanted, but he also didn't mistreat her. He had some personal issues that he was not going to allow to touch her so he did the only thing he knew how and stayed away from her. I think that is the kindest and most mature thing that he could do under the circumstances. I mean he can't exactly fix himself when he doesn't understand enough about the world to even know what is wrong with him, but at least he knew something was wrong and decided not to drag her down with him.
Neither of them were perfect, and they both made some really dumb decisions when they were in highschool, but they were still really good kids. Highschool is where we're supposed to make our dumb decisions anyway. By the time they became adults, they had gotten all of that stuff out-of-the-way,
Isiah was also very realistically romantic. He didn't do the over the top gestures, he did the little things that made her day brighter, and the incredibly thoughtful things that made it clear that his intentions were to have a relationship with her not just have a little fun. Loraine was understandably apprehensive when he showed back up in her life, and watching him try to convince her of his good intentions provided plenty of romance. Because this book was so short, I was able to maintain my smile the entire time I was reading. This is one of those stories that leaves you with a warm and homey sort of feeling, and I can't recommend it enough to fans of clean romance.
This book was very clean and appropriate for ages 12 and up, but this is a book for adults.