First’s – Z. Elizabeth

Synopsis

Livie has always been the stable one of the two Cleary sisters, handling her parents’ tragic death and Kacey’s self-destructive phase with strength and maturity. But underneath that exterior is a little girl hanging onto the last words her father ever spoke to her. “Make me proud,” he had said. She promised she would…and she’s done her best over the past seven years with every choice, with every word, with every action.

Livie walks into Princeton with a solid plan, and she’s dead set on delivering on it: Rock her classes, set herself up for medical school, and meet a good, respectable guy that she’s going to someday marry. What isn’t part of her plan are Jell-O shots, a lovable, party animal roommate she can’t say ‘no’ to, and Ashton, the gorgeous captain of the men’s rowing team. Definitely him. He’s an arrogant ass who makes Livie’s usually non-existent temper flare and everything she doesn’t want in a guy. Worse, he’s best friends and roommates with Connor, who happens to fits Livie’s criteria perfectly. So why does she keep thinking about Ashton?

As Livie finds herself facing mediocre grades, career aspirations she no longer thinks she can handle, and feelings for Ashton that she shouldn’t have, she’s forced to let go of her last promise to her father and, with it, the only identity that she knows.

5 /5 stars

My review of Ten Tiny Breaths HERE

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My Review

Because you’re not a one-night girl, Irish.” Leaning in to place a kiss on my jawline, he whispers, “You’re my forever girl.

*Thanks to NetGalley for a review copy in return for an honest review*

I bloody well loved Ten Tiny Breaths, as you can see from my review, so when I found out Livie was getting a book that was the GREATEST news ever. I literally could not wait for it because I wanted to see how Livie’s life would pan out and if she too, would find love and her obstacles in her life.

I was not disappointed in this book at all. When I picked it up, it was demolished in a matter of hours (not counting how I had to put it down to work) but I was just drawn into Livie’s life, wondering how it was going to end up, wondering about Ashton’s too. You really do feel for Livie and Ashton and that is why I love K.A Tucker’s style. You get sucked in, you have all these feels and you feel the same as the characters you are reading about. It’s hard not to.

Ten Tiny Lies is about Livie and her going off to college. Kelsey’s worried that Livie is going to crack and so she recruits Dr. Stayner to help Livie out, in his obscure ways. Although Livie doesn’t want his help, she humours him and in the end, she talks to him every Saturday, doing everything he tells her to. In turn, when she goes to college, she lets her hair down. She drinks, she makes friends and of course, she falls in love. And as I’ve said, not without complications.

Everything in her life is tipped upside down, she has no idea what to do because it’s the only thing she’s ever known. Just what is Livie going to it?

We first meet Livie in Ten Tiny Breaths. She really is the glue to her and Kelsey, especially after everything Kelsey did and went through. She is strong willed, she’s smart, she’s shy and she has her future all mapped out, she has since she was a little girl. But despite all this, she has yet to ‘crack’ under the pressure of everything and she is too grown up for her own good. Kelsey wants her to crack, to act like the teenager she is and to not just focus on looking after everyone, she needs to let loose a little, live a lot and find herself. Enter Princeton, new friends, a lot of alcohol and a whole lot of complications. What is Livie meant to do? Everything seems to be falling apart right under her.

You really do see Livie grow throughout One Tiny Lie. She is definitely a straight and narrow girl, hating to go off track and not knowing what is going to happen, but Princeton is slowly changing her and its scary. She wants to change but at the same time she doesn’t. It’s all shes wanted and known since she was a little girl. What is she to do if she can’t be a doctor?

I loved her journey though. She finds out who she really is, lets loose and lives a lot, makes new friends, gets drunk and gains a new crush in the form of Ashton. But Ashton is just a little bit broken. Livie has always felt empathy towards people, feels that she can help them in some way and she really did want to help Ashton out, no matter how many times he seemed to push her away. Her determination to ‘free’ him is what I loved about her and she really does find who she is at the end.

Her journey takes her from a straight A’d student to a woman. We watch come out of her shy shell and transform. We see her develop strong feelings for Ashton, watch her deliberate over what the hell to do and literally change her life. Her lifestyle changes, her career prospects change and admitting that out loud is so scary she doesn’t want to, but she has to. She takes babysteps with the help of the amazing Dr. Stayner (What a babe) and he helps her every step of the way with his crazy ideas. But he always makes her see that whatever she does, her dad will always be proud of her.

Dr. Stayner makes Livie understand that you don’t need to plan every single detail of your life, that you should just let things fall into place. Life carries on regardless of if you plan it or not. He really was the father figure that I think Livie needed at that crucial time in her life.

From the get go I was infatuated with Asthton. There was just something about him that I was drawn to – from the way he overpowered Livie to stealing her Jell-o shot and kissing her. HOT HOT HOT! The cocky little bastard that he was. This is the start of a very complicated and back and forth ‘relationship’ between the both of them. They had the chemistry from the first moment but despite Ashton’s cockiness and smugness and flirtiness, he’s pretty damn broken up inside. He’s not ‘free’, and everything he does is a front he puts on in front of his friends and everyone in college.

He hides his private life away, not sharing anything with anyone yet he’s strong, and loveable and you cant help but want to smother him with love and help him through everything. To be the one to free him from his shackles.

He has everything you would want. A great car, goes to a great school, money but there is just someone that he wants but he just cant have her – Livie. No matter how many times he pushes her away, he cant let her go – he’s torn between telling her that she should be with Connor and wanting her to himself. But he’s hiding a massive secret from her, a secret no one, not even his best friend Connor, knows about. See what I told you about the fact that no one really knows anything about Ashton.

But bit by bit he kind of needs Livie to be his reason to be free, to breathe again, and hes there for her as much as she is for him, despite her not fully understanding everything. When you find out the reason why they cant be together, your heart will ache for Ashton. I cried and it pained me that he went through all of this and is still continuing to.

When everything does come out, my heart bled for Livie and Ashton. It was time for Livie to put herself first and take a time out, focus on exactly what she wanted in her life, and if she wanted Ashton in it or not. Her decision was not taken lightly but you could see why she chose what she did in the end. It was courageous of her and of course, she loved Ashton and she really needed to know the truth from him now. Before she fully ‘took’ him back.

They were both exactly what the other needed.

I’m going to mention Connor, as he’s in the synopsis but I really didn’t click with him. He was definitely a safe option for Livie and although he did seem to really like Livie, he just wasn’t really there for her throughout her confusion over her career, her failing grades and I just couldn’t understand why a boyfriend wouldn’t be there for his girlfriend. Thank god she had Ashton around to comfort her and be there for her. She made the right decision.

I was so glad to see Kelsey and Trent and everyone else from TTB cameo in One Tiny Lie. I had missed them so much and although we obviously see Kelsey more – still LOVE this girl and I still love the comments she comes out with, we get to see her and Trent all lovey dovey, which is exactly how we love them!! They deserve so much happiness after everything they have been through. Livie leaves Kelsey in the dark about everything until Livie cracks and returns home after that one revelation one night and tells Kelsey everything. It was so nice to see the two of them bonding and just being the amazing sisters we know them as.

In my opinion this is really what One Tiny Lie is about. Breathing again, freedom, finding who you truly are and being okay with that, with the changes in your life and falling in love and being loved back. Livie and Ashton complete each other. They show each other how to love and how to live and how to free themselves from everything holding them back. They both stole a piece of my heart and I really do hope that they get to be a part of book three – Cain’s book – because I would love to know what happens beyond the end for the two of them.

Please, if you have yet to read Ten Tiny Breaths and One Tiny Lie, grab your copies. These books truly deserve to be read and Ten Tiny Breaths was on my top 10 favourite books of 2012 and would I ever lie to you about great books? No!

Synopsis

Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

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My Review

Seventeen year old Sky has been homeschooled all of her life. She doesn’t have a TV, internet or a phone but it doesn’t seem to faze her, until she begs to go to public school for her senior year.

Everything changes for her after school when she goes to get her secret hit of sugar from the supermarket. That is when she meets Dean Holder who has a reputation bigger than her but also stuns her into silence as with just one look he causes her body to feel things she’s never felt before.

Although he scares her, she’s captivated by him and the more time they spend together, the more he seems to bring out so many emotions but then he also brings out memories that she seems to have forgotten to the service. Ones that she has seemed to forgotten for a reason.

Holder is harbouring a secret and although he wants to stay away from Sky, he can’t. He needs to know everything about her but this secret he has will break Sky but when it’s finally revealed, it changes everything in Sky’s life forever. Thankfully Holder is there to catch Sky throughout it all.

Sky never knew why she didn’t feel attracted to any guy she made out with. She just went along with live thinking she’d never feel attracted or feel lust with anyone, but one look at Holder in the supermarket she was stunned. He was the first guy EVER to make her feel these things and he literally made her heart skip a beat which confused the hell out of her as she has NEVER felt anything for any guy before! Although she had been home schooled, she seemingly has a reputation around the town they live in. She and her best friend Six know the truth but Sky plays along with everyone’s opinions on her when she goes to school.

You can see she’s strong, sarcastic and bluntly honest girl who can definitely hold her own against Holder when they argue. But she’s also a girl who has started to feel new emotions that are foreign to her but she acts questions and Holder answers her as honestly as he can. They are the perfect match for each other and although they got together fairly quickly, it seemed to right for them to do that and I love that they didn’t hold back.

The first time Dean Holder is introduced, he’s smoking hot and a little intense. He blows hot and cold the first few times he is around Sky, which only makes her assumption about him being intense all that more truthful. With her attraction to him, she gets pissed off numerous times over his ‘tantrums’ he seems to pull every so often until there is a period where he stays away from her. But Holder is harbouring a secret that he cannot and will not tell Sky as it will break her but staying away from her is something he cannot do. He needs to be with her and needs to know everything about her. There’s just something about her he can’t pinpoint…

I loved Holder from the beginning. You get to understand why he acted the way he did further along in the book and why he just couldn’t stay away from Sky. He’s been on a mission for the past few years and he was beginning to give up until he found Sky. He’s also very attracted to her and even though they hadn’t known each other long, their chemistry and their charge just kept pulling them together. In the short time, they seem to become everything to each other and to me, it didn’t seem all that strange that they were falling in love quickly, especially when they secret comes out.

Everything that came out of Holder’s mouth was just perfect. He seemed to know what to say in the darkest of moments and also in the lightest. He’s not like any boy I’ve ever known and it was such a relief to read about a guy who felt so many emotions and had me hanging on his every word. He just knew what to do and say to make Sky and himself try to forget everything that was going on and he would do anything for her. Just you read and find out yourself!

There is one scene, okay quite a few, but this one, I KNOW everyone has probably written about it in their review and I’m just another person who will too. The scene where it was the best first kiss, that wasn’t a first kiss. HA you will have to read the book to see what I mean. I was getting so flustered over that scene and it makes it much more intense and sexually charged that my heart was pounding so fast in my chest, it felt like I was experiencing this too – that sounds pretty weird I know, but holy moly, that scene!!

Also the scene where I felt all panicky like Sky was a scene near the end where she’s in the shower. I felt all her emotions and my heart was beating with how much I would be like her if that had happened to me. I kept running a hand through my hair while reading that scene.

I really liked reading all the flashbacks. They are an important part in the story and you see how they integrate into Sky’s life and how they mould her into the person she is today. Since her adoption at 6 years old, she has seemingly forgotten everything about her childhood but slowly she starts to remember things she has pushed away from memory and the dreams are just the click into remembering everything before the adoption. She has never emotionally or physically been attracted to any guy until Holder enters her life and down the line you will see why that is…The flashbacks are essential to the plot.

I had many different theories about the secret, some which I were hoping were not true – I have to say, some of them were – but when the BIG secret was revealed , HOLY SHIT, that secret hadn’t even crossed my mind. That was a complete shocker to me and I’m glad I didn’t figure it out because I sat up in bed, mouth open, rereading that sentence. I don’t think anyone saw that coming!

The ending was a flashback and it kind of pulls the whole story together and makes you think back over the whole book, putting the final finishing thoughts to it as a whole. It took me a while to sleep after I read it as tears were continually falling down my face and I couldn’t stop them. Hopeless is now one of my favourite books and I don’t know why it took so long for me to read it.

Colleen Hoover has made me fall in love with her! Her writing style was refreshing, the book had me hooked from the very beginning and I was captivated until the very end, needing to know what was going to happen next to Sky and Holder. From the Sky and the stars to the pinky holding, it all made complete sense to me as to why they felt so familiar and this book is definitely real. It will drag your emotions out and make you feel things for the characters involved; you will feel connected to them.

A book with so much depth, so many emotions, so much love, and one big secret is definitely a book that needs to be read. Seriously, if you haven’t read the amazing Hopeless, download your copy now and understand why this book is now one of my favourites.