For fans of couples like Carmilla & Laura or Casey and Izzie from Atypical.
A troubled teen is sent to a fancy boarding school halfway through her school year. Many of the other girls at Hanover find themselves either jealous or intrigued by the mystery of the beautiful Laura Collins sent to room with the soccer star of the school, Charli Greenwood, who usually has a room all her own. Old friends and old habits have Laura torn between her old life and new. Being a somewhat anonymous person can't exactly fly for long when Laura's roommate starts to go on nervous dates and have attraction for other pretty girls. Jealousy and lust begins to test many friendships in Love Like Crazy.
***From the writers who brought you the Best-Selling Lesbian Romance: Paper Dolls and the Best-Selling Lesbian Christmas Romance: A Kind of Miracle...***
Definitely captures first love &infatuation, & obsession with each other. Although the story did drag on, it was near 650 pages. This could have been edited down by a few hundred pages. There is a thing as to much teen angst, indecisiveness, etc.
Laura is sent to the Hanover girls boarding school by her parents after she does something that we don't learn about until almost the end of the book. She is assigned to room with Charli, an out lesbian soccer player who's been at the school for many years and has never had a girlfriend. For the first half of the book, the alternating first person POV chapters describe their growing mutual attraction, which is acted upon right after the half-way mark in this very long book. The first half is engaging because Laura is troubled, self-hating and slow to trust, while Charli is naive and fearful. Once things heat up, the book sacrifices the movement of plot in the second half with long sex scenes and the minutia of the main characters' interactions as they fold into themselves as a couple. Although the tension in the story comes from Laura's former best friend and love interest, Vic, another angry, troubled teen, and Charli's former best friend, Lindsay, there are many instances where I thought things were going to blow up between Laura and Charli, but they were always resolved.
This is a high angst book and I'm predicting a second novel for these two since there's quite a bit left unresolved (even with the HFN ending). An interaction between Charli and Lindsay toward the end made me think that a second book could center around damage that Lindsay could do with the info she received in that interaction.
I'm rounding down from a 3.5 to a 3 given my critique of the book's second half.
laura colins. charli greenwood. first quible far to long. second vic/vicky or victoria. i hated from the first page she apead on and never softend towards her, and what that did was pushed me into adoring laura, where first i'd seen laura as bad news for meak kind quiet charli, i very soon began to see what vic had done to her, and even more charli's attempts to straten her out, i can't say they where made for each other they where to different but by the end of this very long book they seemed to want to make a future together and at least i'm glad of that, charli's folks were just so right for the two teenager's we didn't get any angst from them which was just perfect, i was waiting for the enevitable face of from charli and vic which never realy came and what the hell was laura thinking after vic had split her lip to surgest she didn't become a stranger, i don't think charli will ever change her oppinion of vic
I've read a decent amount of YA fic and specifically teen romance, but this book stood out because I found the narration so realistic, it was like actually being inside the brain of 16/17 year olds. Which was disturbing because that was half a lifetime ago for me and revisiting that mindset so immersively was a little disturbing and uncomfortable. Yet, I couldn't put the book down. There were times it felt long and drawn out and overly emo or dramatic and the characters pissed me off frequently... particularly Laura. But that was almost part of the charm of the experiance. Teens acting like full on teens.
Lovely romance shame all our flatmates weren't like this
Wrong side of the tracks and in a new school. What happens at a girl's boarding schoolstays at the boarding school or so my friends who attended them say. This was a lovely novel even if occasionally you want to reach in the book and yell at a character, You feel involved I. This book. Read t you'll love it!
This book was a roller coaster of emotions, betrayal, fear, misunderstandings, pain, neglect and love. It was also very sexy..so much so, that I had to remind myself that Laura and Charli were HIGH SCHOOL teenagers. Beautiful writing and I felt every emotion so thoroughly. Blown away is what I am..Bravo!👏🏽👏🏽
The book should have been half as long. The plot lines became cyclical, the characters had the same problems without ever really resolving them, and the personalities defined through the first half of the book dissolve as the second half struggles to find a reason to keep the book going.
Few writers capture the pleasure and pain of first love better than Stone and Chamberlain. If you are a young lesbian looking for books with an authentic voice you need look no farther. I can heartily recommend this and any written by them.
This whole book I kept waiting for it to get better. Well it never did. Just repeating words or story lines. It’s a very boring book that I should have just gave up on.
I really can’t begin how to describe this book. It’s easily one of the worst books I have ever read. About 70% of the book could be cut without any change to the plot or character development.