I decided to read this book after seeing several scathing movie reviews on Youtube. I wanted to see if the book would be as bad as the movie, and when I saw the negative reviews on Goodreads, I knew that I might be in for a bad time. Surprisingly, I liked the book more than I thought I would. There are going to be discussions of spoilers and triggering content in this review (sexual assault, r*pe, & emotional abuse). If you are comfortable with that type of content, then read on!
Let me start this review by saying that Hardin is definitely a broken and problematic character. He needed therapy for his problems before he got a girlfriend, BUT I feel like those untreated problems painted him as more of a monster than he really was.
His issues with his dad are painted as just being “teenage issues” at first. He just doesn’t want to see his dad marry a new woman, right? But what isn’t mentioned until the middle of the book is that Hardin has deeply embedded trauma. He saw his mom raped when he was young, because his dad was an alcoholic and got into a fight with some men who came to their house to “get revenge.” This is absolutely HORRIFIC. His dad never seems to apologize for this event, and Hardin says his mom is still struggling to make ends meet back in England. When I heard this, I actually kinda sided with Hardin’s action for a minute. I would be pissed as hell if that had happened to my mom, my dad had never really apologized, didn’t provide for her, and acted as if everything was peachy with his new wife-to-be. This made me sympathize with his character more, he wasn’t just being a brat, his dad was actually just being a dick. I’ll bet the stepmother-to-be didn’t even know that had happened to his mother. Hardin’s dad was probably just pretending to be Prince Charming and acting as if all that didn’t happen.
This doesn’t excuse what he did to Tessa. Tessa definitely deserved better than his outbursts, drinking, insults, and manipulative behavior. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that he literally got with her for a bet, a bet her friends KNEW about, and didn’t tell her until they were in a relationship for 2 months. But it does make me understand how broken his character truly was.
But I don’t want people thinking Tessa is some perfect baby angel innocent character who was so “easily” manipulated by Hardin’s attention. This would have made sense if Hardin was Tessa’s first boyfriend and if she had come into college desperate for love. But no. Tessa had a boyfriend for years before she came to college. She had been friends with Noah for years and eventually started dating him in high school. He seemed like a really sweet guy, him being a great boyfriend had nothing to do with whether he wanted to have sex before or after marriage. If Tessa had really liked him, she would have married him or waited. But she literally sees Hardin like a handful of times, and is all of a sudden falling in love with him. Tessa breaks Noah’s heart, as he was totally faithful to her and always willing to drop everything to drive 3 hours to visit her. She even left him alone in her dorm one night when Hardin needed help after he had driven out to see her.
This isn’t even mentioning the fact that Tessa is really, really contradictory. She starts the book as a very slut-shamey character. She just adores her “modest” clothing and is here to judge people and love her high school sweetheart. Then in the span of 2 months, she has lost her virginity, is living with her boyfriend, and wearing entirely different clothing. I can say that as a college student, people can change quickly. But usually not without the help of drugs or a lot of alcohol. And she doesn’t seem to overdo it with either, she just has a hidden “bad side” that comes to play as soon as she leaves her mom’s house.
I didn’t like Tessa’s mom, but I 100% agreed with her about getting together and going to live with Hardin too quickly. Again, speaking from the perspective of a current college student. Let’s say one of my friends comes into college never even having slept over at a boyfriend’s house, saving herself for marriage, the whole bit. Then in 2 months, she leaves her long-term boyfriend, starts sleeping around with this guy she barely knows, spends almost every night with him, and then buys an apartment with him. I would be MORE than a little bit concerned. Even if one of my friends had this change in 4 months I would be highly concerned. This is not the behavior of a healthy, stable person. Especially when she had a dorm paid for throughout the semester and could have easily stayed there.
Okay, so why did I rate this book 3 stars? It sounds like I hate this book. Or at least that I hate the characters. But I rate this book 3 stars because, dammit, I really enjoyed reading it.
Hardin and Tessa had a toxic, insta-love relationship. But they had so much chemistry together because they were both toxic. Tessa could help Hardin through the nightmares and trauma he had. Hardin didn’t have too much to offer Tessa, but he did help her unlock this side of herself that she had clearly considered wrong and judged others for having. He helped her break away from the toxic ideals she had set for herself in her head and just be the way that she clearly wanted to be from the start of the book. If she had not wanted to be the way Hardin made her, she would have fought far harder to stay with Noah.
The book was so addictive that I almost read it in one sitting. The book seemed to be a fairly realistic representation of college life, nothing seemed to be too out of the ordinary. Even if Tessa and Hardin weren’t the most realistic characters, I feel that the book also showed how toxic some relationships in college can be. College is full of people who are just out of high school, with all the mostly-untreated trauma that they bring from childhood, thrown into a place where they are expected to be adults. Neither Tessa or Hardin were ready for a real relationship, but they found each other.
I feel like the reason I felt so attracted to this book was because of this analysis of these characters. I didn’t come in looking for a good love story. I didn’t get a good love story! But an okay story? I think I got that out of this book. Unique characters? Check. Addictive plot? Check. Plot twists? Kinda check. Good dialogue? Check. Descriptive scenes? Check. Drama? Check. I feel like I still want to read the next book in this series!
I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a contemporary NA novel.
Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 books.
