Falling Hard by Tina Wainscott
This book was provided to me for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it)
Summary: Seven years ago in high school, new girl Gemma and black-sheep-son Pax experienced a soul-searing connection before Gemma decided to date his clean-cut, football-player older brother Blake instead. But after she accused Blake of date-raping her and was essentially forced to leave their small Florida town, it seemed that any connection between Gemma and Pax has been severed.
When Gemma returns to help with her father's business after while he's in the hospital, she and Pax find that actually, their connection - and attraction - are stronger than ever. But there is so much between them that any sort of relationship seems impossible.
Thoughts: I was a little torn on what to rate this book - it's more like two and a half stars. I liked how the book dealt with Gemma as a rape survivor and how it dealt with the reasons why Blake is a horrible person without excusing his actions. (Spoiler alert: he's not the only horrible person.) There was a lot of other drama involving other related characters that I won't get into (because of spoilers), but the big lesson is that no one is horrible for no reason.
On the other hand, I was a little put off by some of the dialogue by Pax and Gemma, actually. Maybe I have limited experience of people, but I constantly found myself thinking, "Do people actually talk this way?" Their speech was a little too flowery, too long-winded. And I kind of get it - I wouldn't call myself a writer by any means, but the stuff I haven't written, I've caught myself writing dialogue that was writer-y rather than being speaker-y - there's a difference between writing something intended to be read and writing something intended to be spoken. And I know books are written to be read, but still, their conversations had me like, "No one I know talks like this." *shrug*