Star gets a phone call out of the blue that her mother died and she needs to go back to her hometown to deal with the aftermath. Star’s mom was a hoarder, which only got worse after Star was placed in foster care, and now Star has to clean the mess her mom left behind. Ash was just released from prison after serving his term for manslaughter. He has no place to live, nobody will hire him due to his past and he is treated like a pariah. Star needs help desperately and feels pity for Ash, so she g
...ives him a job to help her clean out her mom’s place so she can sell it and go back to her regular life far far away.
This was a very quick read for me; I easily blew through it in a day or so. Even though the subject matter/pasts of the two characters were pretty dark, the book was a light easy read that I could pick up and read without complications. I will be perfectly honest, it was really nice to read a book and get what I expected from it. Maybe most of you like a surprise when you read, but I have personally experienced too many surprises recently in my books, and not the good kind. I liked that I went into this with a certain expectation and that is what I received. Sure this may not have been an award winning story, and yes I did have a few things I questioned logistically that I will mention in a bit, but I really liked that I could count on a this to be a New Adult novel that was for the most part straight forward.
Let’s start with my issues with the book for just a minute. First and foremost, Star and Ash? Really? Their names drove me crazy! Are these stage names? I understand that people today like to have funky names, but I like real names on my characters (And yes I know his name was Ashley, which at one point in its long history use to be a man name, but is now predominantly female). I would have been fine with him being Ash if Star could have had a real name and maybe Star her nickname or something. But these two together just irked me in the realism department, and yes I am being picky and whiney, but that is how I feel. Another issue was their age differences. Ash is 28 and Star is 19, yet she is so much more mature than he is or seemed. Sure he was in prison for 5 years, but what kind of life (besides partying) did he have from 18 to 23? At one point it said he did not graduate from high school and I was confused as to what he did for money or where he lived, yet it is glossed over as if it is inconsequential, but it was not to me. It just seemed like his past was left blank, and I kinda wish he had the prison incident when he was younger, like 18 or 19 instead, so it would make more sense why he did not have any other kind of life. And lastly, the dog incident was not the most realistic of situations. I don’t want to be too spoilery so I won’t go into detail, but I am not buying what you are selling about the how and why of it. Too coincidental for me.
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