The Book Hammock (Eleanor)

And he laughs. Not the heavy laughter from before. It’s a great laugh. A deep laugh. One that makes my lips lift. Isaiah, the guy who an hour ago carried himself like a jungle predator, now has the content aura of a lazy cat bathing in the sun.

*twirls* I loooooooove this series. Admittedly, my favorite is the first, Noah and Echo’s story. But I’ll say again, this series is one of my favorite YA on the verge of NA contemporary series out there.

I’ve been waiting for Isaiah’s story for AGES, YEARS, EONS… ok, so no, but I have been waiting since even before Beth’s story. There’s just something about Isaiah that screams GOOD and MISUNDERSTOOD and SWOONY.

For Rachel, I’d shovel coal into the furnace in hell.

Isaiah is in the thick of the street life, he has no choice. Rooming with Noah at an infested apartment in the not so exciting part of town, behind rent and scraping for money while avoiding his foster family, he is definitely not in the best of shapes. Noah planning on moving to the dorms isn’t helping things. And then to make matters worse (depending how you look at things) Isaiah’s mother, 2 years after being released from prison, is reaching out and want to renew their relationship.

Rachel Young is a blond, petite, fragile-ish girl, surrounded by 4 brothers and overprotective parents, who mostly see her as a replacement for their eldest daughter who they’ve lost to cancer before Rachel and her twin were even born

I hate Colleen. Hate her. I’ve never met her and I despise her.
How dare she be perfect and beautiful and everything everyone could have ever dreamed of in a sister and a daughter. How dare she get sick and die and leave this entire family in shambles. How dare she haunt me from her grave, taunting me with how I will never be good enough.

Rachel is rich and mostly the exact opposite of Isaiah. But they have something in common.

Both LOVE muscle cars.

Rachel suffers at the hands of her family. Not intentionally, and they do love her, but my God if there are characters more dense in literary fiction than her parents and possibly her older brothers, call me Petunia. I wanted to smash my Paperwhite against the wall several times, and possibly *cough* bitched *cough* about them on twitter a few times while reading. I did like most other characters, though there weren’t many more major-ish ones.

While Rachel makes a few innocent mistakes, trying to let loose and free of her suffocating and pressuring family, she meets Isaiah. At an illegal drag race. Welp!

Getting in trouble with Eric, the drag race-street-lord is possibly the last thing Rachel needs, and to Isaiah’s credit he does try to prevent that happening. However, things get slightly complicated and the end result is Isaiah and Rachel in bed with Eric. And no, not the fun way.

Taking into consideration everything both MCs have to deal with, throwing in Beth trying to rekindle her friendship with Isaiah and him trying to deal with his mother’s return to his life, makes for one heck of an emotional ride.

McGarry’s writing is always emotional, genuine and compelling. The relationships she creates are easy to empathize with, even if not to the letter (God, I hope few of us have to deal with this kind of crap in life).  And when a beautiful and complex character like Isaiah is the one the story revolves around, knowing she is the one to do him justice only makes wanting to read the story stronger.

So yes, while I disliked (understatement) most of the characters involved in the plot. And while there were a lot of ups and downs, many twists in the plot and yes – a lot of rage (on my part), I enjoyed this story immensely.

My rating: 

I am now waiting for West’s story. He’s a enough of a complex idiot (right now) that his story has the potential to be pretty awesome. Also, a novella for Ethan and Abby (hint hint) wouldn’t be rejected from my TBR list. Just FYI, Katie *wink*