| Title: | Believe | |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Erin McCarthy | |
| Publisher | Penguin Group | |
| Publication Date: | January 2014 | |
| Publisher's Description | Robin used to be a party girl… until she got black out drunk and woke up in bed with her best friend's boyfriend. Now she's faced with being THAT girl, and couldn't be more disgusted with herself. She can't even tell her friends the reason for her sudden sobriety and she avoids everyone until she meets Phoenix—quiet, tattooed, and different in every way that's good and oh, so bad… Phoenix is two days out of jail when he meets Robin at his cousin's house, and he knows that he has no business talking to her, but he's drawn to her quiet demeanor, sweet smile, and artistic talent. She doesn't care that he's done time, or that he only has five bucks to his name, and she supports his goal to be a tattoo artist. But Phoenix knows Robin has a secret, and that it's a naïve dream to believe that his record won't catch up with them at some point. Though neither is prepared for the explosive result when the past collides with the present… |
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| My rating: | **** | |
I found this book totally heartbreaking and ultimately satisfying. I feel that I connected to it in a way that I think a lot of New Adult titles try and fail to reach me, the reader. Robin’s sense of bewilderment at what her life has become and subsequent heartbreak is so palpable that it’s hard to witness, and I kept wishing that she didn’t spend so much of the book feeling alone. Likewise, Phoenix’s criminal record and jail time isolate him from the people that one would expect him to be able to lean on; I’m glad that he and Robin find each other. I like their dynamic, and the cautious but hopeful way that they get to know each other. I love that they are both artists, and are able to connect with and understand each other on that level. I really believed this relationship, and that these characters don’t just need somebody, but that they specifically each fulfill some need in the other person.
I didn’t realize when picking up this book that it was the third in the series, although it became clear pretty early one when other couples appeared. Regardless, this book can be read as a standalone title without losing anything, although I liked it enough that I am going to go back and read the first two books. I’ve read other books by Erin McCarthy, and although I’m sure that I enjoyed them, this is by far my favorite of her works.
I received this book free of charge through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review and my knowledge of Jimmy Hoffa’s whereabouts.
This book has a lot of things going for it. First, Maggie is completely believable as a 20 year old protagonist. She’s not impossibly sophisticated, even considering that she is raised by this universe’s answer to Faith Hill and Tim McGraw (so maybe keep it zipped, Tim, mmmkay?). Second, country music is not a genre that is overly represented in fiction in general, and it’s nice that no character in this book is actively trying to be Taylor Swift. Third, this is one of the least trigger-inducing New Adult novels that I have ever read. I appreciated that Maggie has to overcome several real things that don’t involve blunt force trauma or parental death. There’s a lot of hard stuff happening in Maggie’s life, but it feels manageable for her and for an audience of readers to deal with. Fourth, Maggie is kind of a brat. That doesn’t seem like a compliment, but really, it’s all tied into my first point, and it helped me believe that this is a story about a young woman who is growing up and experiencing any number of life-changing events in a brief amount of time. Even when I wanted to shake her and then put her in time out, I believed in the pettiness and immaturity at the heart of her actions and words. Fifth, I love the role that words play in this novel. I mean, duh. Yes, the books that I review here generally feature a lot of words, but for these characters, expression is especially important. They can’t always do it, either through language or music. What is not said is often at least as important as what is said.