I did not like this one nearly as much as the first one.
There will be spoilers, but really, how do I properly write this review without them?
I don’t, that’s how.
So read on at your own peril.
Oly. Good lord, OLY. I did not like her. The problem was, she was fine to start with, the not-liking came gradually. Then, by the end, it was full out, don’t-give-a-shit-about-this-couple-anymore.
Oly was childish. Annoying in her refusal to do things that were for her own safety.
Her attitude, a lot of times, was immature. She was stubborn, and not about the right things. I struggled to understand what Dean saw in her.
Dean. Ugh. God, the self-pity and loathing he had for himself was way too over the top. I couldn’t take it anymore.
It felt like West needed some conflict to make the story longer, so she added in heaps of drama between Dean and Oly.
Jesus Christ, they could have gotten together so much sooner.
Then we have the mother showing up. WHAT THE EVER-LIVING HELL?!
Yeah. I was pissed. LIKE, WHY???? Why, West, did you feel it prudent to bring that woman back?
And not only did she bring her back, but she tried to make the reader have some fucking compassion for a woman who LEFT — did you effing hear that??— she LEFT HER FIVE SONS. As in, she abandoned them and never even sent a goddamn postcard.
And Oly, fucking Oly, in the last chapter, has the nerve to ask Dean to give this fucking woman (their mother) a chance. To keep an “open mind”.
Oh my god. Are you serious Oly??
We were also subjected to the sickening scene where Oly and the mother of the Cade boys, are having a little “heart-to-heart”. Eww. Just, please spare me.
Why did all of that need to be packed into the end of the book?
Oly had both of her parents growing up. She had no idea what it was like to be abandoned by one, so excuse me for thinking that , hmmm, maybe Oly doesn’t know jack-shit about that?? So maybe she’s the last person who should ask Dean to keep an open mind about her.
The Cade brothers had an asshole of a father, so, that’s another point against their mother. Why leave your babies with a man like that?
I hate the way West portrayed their mother. Like the reader is supposed to have some sort of sympathy for her. Fuck that.
I was really looking forward to reading the next book in this series, but now I’m really debating that. Because I don’t want more of this “mother-coming-back-and-living-in-same-small-town-as-the-sons-she-fucking-abandoned” shit.
I’m so disappointed. I really loved the first book in this series. But West really messed up with one.