Review: Stay by Deb Caletti.

Main Character: Clara
Love Interest: Finn Bishop.
Series: None
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Clara’s relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it’s almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is—and what he’s willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won’t let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough….

Wow, this book was one intense roller coaster of emotions.

I have never been through anything like Clara has been through with her relationship with Christian but man did Deb Caletti do a fantastic job of putting me in Clara’s shoes. She did a phenomenal job of making me feel what Clara felt. The confusion, the frustration, the fear. I felt it all while reading this book and right from the very beginning, I was gripped.

It started with a meeting of the eyes across a crowded basketball court and a love blossomed between two people that was intense and chock full of emotions that you can’t help but crave it, lust after it and then once it becomes too much, you’re unsure of what to do next. Do you stay or do you go? If you go, can you live with erasing someone who has come to mean so much to you out of your life? Learning to move on and learning to like yourself again after being in an obsessive relationship is hard.

This book follows Clara as she tries to do exactly that. Getting out of the emotionally abusive relationship she had with Christian was hard but over the course of this book, you see Clara trying to move on with her life and trying to come to terms with the person she was with Christian and the person she wants to be from now on. You see just how strong Clara is and you want her to get better right along with her Dad and her best friend.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first trek into the writing of Deb Caletti. This book was deep and it was wonderfully written because though I’ve never been through any of the things that Clara has, I connected with her and I wanted to hold her hand while she got her life back. Meeting Finn Bishop helped round this story out and I really enjoyed it.

From the secondary characters to Clara herself, this book is filled to the brim with awesomeness and a whole lot of ugliness too. There were times where I would get so frustrated with Clara but I understood that she’s not perfect and I was okay with it. It was interesting to see this kind of relationship. In YA books, we’re spoiled with great love triangles and awesome couples but Deb Caletti went another way in the telling of a story of a broken couple trying to move on with the rest of their lives. The ups and downs made for such an interesting story that I couldn’t put this down even when the book slowed a bit in the middle.

Deb Caletti did a great job of weaving a story that I totally fell in with and I totally recommend this book to lovers of Caletti’s previous work and contemporary YA stories with realistic themes.

Thanks to Holly over at Good Golly Miss Holly for allowing me to participate in the ARC Tour for this wonderful book! If you want to see the rest of the tour stops on the way for this particular book, click here.

..and that’s your scoop!

Buy the book: B&N|Borders|Amazon|Book Depository
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com

Related Posts