0.25 ⭐️
There is nothing worse than finding a book that has a plot that you like and realizing that it is horribly written and developed.
Since I started reading it, I realized that there were many things wrong with this book and as I progressed, I simply reinforced that thought. Normally I'm not one to read reviews, but I was curious and I read some reviews to see if anyone thought the same as me (and I still didn't finish it). And indeed there was someone who had already verbalized, or at least written in words what seemed wrong with this book.
Really, it seems that no editor went over this book. The narrative structure and the writing is terrible. Jumps in time that you don't even realize they happened because there's nothing to distinguish them. This is just one of the bad things about this book, because we are just talking about the writing.
Now let's move on to the development of the story and the characters. Probably the only character who is half saved from this book is Calvin, because all the others are a cheap excuse.
Speaking of the story: because of the series to which this book belongs, one would have thought that it would be a dark Romance, and you find yourself with a "beautiful" high school romance; removing the poorly written narrative structure, we can say that the first part of the story is beautiful and calm. Super badly told, but pretty. From the leap in time, the development of the story is disgusting. Literally a waste because in this type of plot, the trope of second chances has a lot of potential, if you know how to write and develop it. This author definitely didn't know how to do it.
The story has many holes, which partly have to do with the poorly made narrative structure, but we go in parts. The story is divided when the MC’s are met at 16, from there there is a time jump of two years (badly told), and then a time jump of 10 years. But in the first jump of time, things are left unfinished; for example, at first they tell you that the brother, Fox, has a girlfriend and that he is super in love with that girl, and two years later, she is not mentioned again, as if she had never existed.
It is assumed that in the story his father was the president of a motorcycle club, and that Fox was already part of that club, but we never really see the club acting. For those of us who read this type of book, we know what these types of "organizations" do (at least in fiction), but we never see that the MC gets involved (because in theory he should be out of), and really the club has no interference in the story, other than in the fact that the father was a criminal, because to be honest, the father did not need to be part of a motorcycle club to be an abuser and a criminal. The club was too much. It was the way of giving meaning to the MC’s reputation as a bad boy so that it was the typical story of a good girl/bad boy, but once again the club was too much.
Normally I would have been excited about the surprise pregnancy trope. Unlike many, I do love this trope, but the development of this story ruined it. At the time I found the plot twist of the brother about who his real father was more interesting than the one of pregnancy. In the end that plot twist was a waste of time, because literally it had nothing to do with the story, nor did it affect a single thing in the plot. Really, I don't know what the author was trying to do with that.
Now, the final part of the book, a decade later. What a terrible development. Ellison became stupid. What was that, treating Calvin as if the guy were some kind of serial killer? She treated him as if he had killed more people than his father. She talks about him as if before killing his father, he had been a troubled boy when it was known that he was not. He behaved in the best way, not only to be with her, but not to be like his father and Ellison talks about him as if he had always been a problematic and violent boy who liked to hurt people as a sport.
Ellison did not act as a protective mother, but as a vengeful and proud woman who only wanted to hurt her daughter's father. All that last part, I really had a very angry time with her, with Fox, even with Adele herself (although the little one saves herself a little). Sometimes the dialogues gave me a lot of cringe. They didn't make any sense or a good narrative structure.
Because of these poorly written books, the tropes of surprise pregnancy and second chances are quite hated.
Really, there is nothing to rescue from this book. The only thing that that book served me was to complete my annual challenge.
Too bad, I don't think I'll ever read anything by this author, again.