Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Review | "Shattered Ties" by K.A. Robinson

Shattered Ties by K.A. Robinson
New Adult Romance published November 27, 2013
Published by CreateSpace
Author's website  |  Goodreads  |  Buy on Audible

Synopsis from Goodreads:

With a former supermodel mother and a rock-and-roll legend father, Emma Preston has the best of everything. Nothing is as perfect as it seems though. After her parents divorce, she’s forced to live with her mother in a private Santa Monica community. Ignoring their parental roles, her mother becomes more focused on climbing the social ladder while her father is off on tour. 

Growing up in a trailer park with his mother, Jesse is used to people looking down on him. When his mother begs him to submit an application for a scholarship to one of Santa Monica’s top private schools, he never expects to actually get it. When he does, he is forced to attend school with a bunch of rich kids. He ignores their stares as they judge him for having tattoos and a less than impressive car. As long as he has his surfboard and the guys at the tattoo shop, he knows he can make it through. 

When Jesse shows up on the first day of school, Emma can’t help but be intrigued. Her mother would never approve of Emma talking to someone so poor, but she doesn’t care because something about Jesse draws her to him. 

Jesse tries to hate Emma, but he discovers that he can’t resist her. Forced to hide their relationship from Emma’s mother and everyone else around them, things start to fall apart. When Jesse’s friend, Ally, decides to interfere, things go from bad to worse. 

Can they survive their first love? Or will they be left with nothing more than shattered ties?

Book 1 of a 2 book series. 

**18+ for sexual situations, cursing, and adult content.***

my thoughts...

I am going to keep this review pretty short, mostly because it's been a couple weeks since I finished the book.  This is the first chance I have had to sit down and write the review.  This is the first book I have gotten from Audible for review.  Generally, I tend to listed to audio books for books that I have already read.  The reason being that my mind tends to wander and I end up missing most of what's happening.  This isn't something that happens when I read because all my focus is on the book.  Also, I read really fast and a book that takes 7 hours to listen to is a book I can read in 2 hours!  As it ended up I did listen to about 85% of the book then I broke down and got it for my kindle so I could read the end.  I wanted to finish it and I knew that I wasn't going to have a chance to listen to it as soon as I wanted.  So, I guess that's a good sign!

This is kind of a cross between YA and NA.  The characters are the age that kids in YA novels are, but the content is definitely not YA so it's made clear even in the Goodreads blurb that it's for age 18+.   This is your typical first love type of story, it's not terribly original, but who doesn't love a good "rich girl falls in love with the bad boy from the wrong side of town" story?  I know I do and this one was no exception.  Jesse is a great character, he's an only child being raised by his single mother. She's a hard worker and does everything she can for her son.  Jesse gets a scholarship to attend the same private school that Emma does.  He doesn't want to go, but his mother insists on his attending college and this is his way to ultimately get a scholarship to college.  All Jesse really wants to do is be a tattoo artist, but even he sees the value of a college degree.

Emma is also being raised by her mother.  Her parents are divorced, her father is in a rock band and is travelling most of the time with the band.  Her mother is a rich snob who looks down on everyone who isn't in the same social position she is.  She is violently opposed to Emma's school allowing scholarship kids to attend so when Emma starts to befriend Jesse she knows that her mother can never find out.  Fortunately, Emma is nothing like her mother.  She and Jesse become close, but there is one person who is always standing in her way.

I liked this story overall, but I felt like it ended really abruptly.  There was all this build up and tension and then it was just over.  Sure, there is another book (and I immediately read it), but for me this particular part of the story ended too soon.  I feel like there needed to be something more there when it came down to it.  Because of this I ended up giving the book a 3 star rating on Goodreads, but I will qualify that by saying that I lean more towards 3.5 stars.

This book does deal with adult themes, there are some detailed love scenes that isn't the norm in books where the characters are this particular age.   

XOXO, Shelly

*Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of this book courtesy of Audible.com in exchange for my honest review.*

No comments:

Post a Comment

nRelate Posts Only