Author: 

Genre: Teenfic

What I liked about this book:

The setting was pretty. The author seems too have an idea of the story she wants to tell. Bits of the description were beautiful, especially concerning the beach and the scenery around it. The author seems to have a love for painting a portrait with words for the stuff we're able to see and hear.

The prose was also clean, with very few spelling and grammar errors, and looks like it's been proofread at least once. This is something I appreciate in fiction I read because it's less work for me.

What I did NOT like about this book:

Ari comes off as a giant bitch, and not a likeable character. I spent the whole eight chapters just hoping someone would punch her in the face. I'm okay with digging mean girls characters, but NOT because of how they look or dress or how 'slutty' they are, and for that reason I had a HUGE problem with how Priscilla was portrayed. It's not okay to call other women sluts and hoes, but it's being portrayed as if it is.

The text was confusing and awkward, and included too many random flashbacks. When we jumped to Reeve's POV, it took me a solid half chapter to figure out we weren't in Haven's head anymore. It's confusing, it's a mess, and it's awkward. Although it was clean grammatically and spelling-wise, it's both purple and VERY telly. Way too much description of mundane things, even if those things are beautiful. It took two and a half chapters for anything interesting to happen.

That's not even the biggest issue I have with this book though. That is this:

Reeve is a stalker.

It took me until chapter SEVEN to figure out what the fuck he was doing in her house, and then we find out...they were friends in the third grade? What? It's not okay to watch and follow someone because you were friends when you were seven! It's creepy! It's especially not okay to go into their house without any warning, even if it results in abusive dad getting punched in the face.

Haven doesn't even remember Reeve, which makes it super creepy when he just calls her to the bleachers then kisses her. Trust me, no matter how beautiful you think a dude is, a boundary violation like that is so many levels of not okay. They'd spoken ONCE.

I am not okay with this potrayal at all. I am not okay with him stalking her. I am not okay with him letting himself into her house. I am not okay with his obsession with her in how it's echoed in his thoughts, and this whole thing just comes off as seven shades of predatory.

Overall:

Bad portrayal of stalker behaviors. Bad prose. Slut shaming. I wouldn't read this again.

Rating:

It would have been a 5/10 because the text was readable, but it gets a 1/10 because of the unhealthy relationship boundaries/slut shaming.