Review: Taking Chances by Molly McAdams.

Love Interest: Brandon, Chase or Carter?
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Eighteen year old Harper has grown up under her career Marine of a father’s thumb. Ready to live life her own way and experience things she’s only ever heard of from the jarheads in her father’s unit; she’s on her way to college at San Diego State University.

Thanks to her new roommate, Harper is introduced to a world of parties, gorgeous guys, family and emotions. Some she wasn’t expecting yet, and others she never knew she was missing.

She finds herself being torn in two as she quickly falls in love with her boyfriend Brandon, and her roommate’s brother Chase. Covered in tattoos, known for fighting in the Underground and ridiculously muscled…they’re exactly what she was always warned to stay away from, but just what she needs. Despite their dangerous looks and histories, both adore and would do anything for Harper, including stepping back if it means she’s happy.

Her first year away is turning out to be near perfect, but one weekend of giving in to heated passion will change everything.

Due to sexual situations and language, this is Mature YA/New Adult. Recommended for ages 17+

New Adult is not so new to me since I’ve been a huge fan of Meg Cabot, who’s been writing New Adult since before it was cool but I was really looking forward to reading this book, in particular because it sounded interesting.

Taking Chances follows Harper as she journeys from her military home in North Carolina and moves across country to attend college in San Diego.  I went into this book wanting to like it and I didn’t hate it but there were times when I thought I wasn’t going to finish this one.

So Harper moves to San Diego and immediately she gets along with her dorm roommate.  Her roommate Bree has a brother who’s like in a fraternity and is throwing a party so Bree talks Harper into going.  Harper has grown up on a Marine military base so she’s been around guys her whole life but this is new waters for her because the guys here aren’t like brothers to her.  Her father is not their boss so these guys don’t have to be nice to her…but they are.  Except for Chase.  Chase is Bree’s brother and a total badass playboy.  Different girl every night and he doesn’t hide his lifestyle from anyone.

Of course at first glimpse, Harper hates Chase.  Yeah, he’s hot but he knows it and the way that he uses girls as little playthings completely turns Harper off so she’s written him off…which pisses him off.  Bree and Harper are staying at Chase’s house which I thought was completely weird, since Chase is the older brother and he’s letting his sister Bree (who’s a freshman in college) sleep at his frat house with a bunch of horny college dudes? Hmm…and what I found even more weird is that Harper slept with Chase that same night.  They didn’t have sex but they slept together in the same bed which I found odd since Harper is a virgin and Bree told everyone.  Chase, the biggest horndog of them all sleeps with Harper and nothing happens?

Hmm, again.

So after that weekend, Harper meets Brandon…one of Chase’s roommates and instantly, they like each other.  Brandon is the opposite of Chase.  He’s hot and he’s nice and he wants to wait until Harper is ready to take their relationship to the next level.  Whatever Harper wants, Brandon is all for.  So they get together, they become a couple…even though Harper still has these effed up feelings for Chase.

I get that she can’t explain her feelings for Chase and I get that she was broken up about those feelings because of things with Brandon but this story just kept getting more and more bizarre with each passing page.

So Brandon and Harper are together but Chase has decided that he wants to be with Harper too.  Chase is a hot head and he does and says things that kind of scare people but at heart, he’s a big softy.  Brandon knows about Chase’s feelings for Harper and he isn’t a fan so they fight…time after time after time, they fight over Harper.  It doesn’t matter that Harper is with Brandon, Chase wants her and a part of Harper wants him too.

The thing that I couldn’t understand was why all of these people seemed to fall in love with Harper and want to protect her from the world.  I couldn’t see what was so great about her that so many guys wanted to be with her.  Wanted to fight for her hand.  There wasn’t anything about her that stood out (except that she was a virgin but even that didn’t stand out since I know a lot of Mormon girls who don’t put out) that would explain why she was in hot demand.  Because on top of Brandon and Chase, there was Carter too.  Carter, the boy from back home who was stationed under Harper’s father’s command.  Carter, who moved across country to be with her.  She reminded me of Bella Swan.  Nothing really spectacular and yet everyone wanted to be with her.

She pissed me off a lot throughout this book because she was so hot damn selfish and just over the top “good”.  She was such a snot to Chase that I kept disliking her more and more as the story progressed.  She loves both of these guys but she doesn’t want to hurt Brandon because he’s been nothing but nice to her and he loves her but she was always okay with hurting Chase and wondering why he was so hot and cold with her.  It was killing him to be around her and the way that she just didn’t see it made me want to punch her in the throat.  Oh, poor me…Chase is being mean to me at school but I have no idea why.  I’ll just start going to his family days and hope that he’ll be nice to me there, even though I’m always going to choose Brandon, I’m going to continue to usurp Chase’s family days with HIS family and then when he stops coming to HIS family days, I’m going to wonder why he hates me so much that he doesn’t ever want to see me.

Ugh.

My favorite character in the whole story was probably Chase.  I liked him the most because he was the most honest about everything.  About his feelings for Harper.  About his dislike for Brandon.  About his weaknesses and then we get to the middle of the story and I thought I was truly and completely done with the story.  I couldn’t believe what happened, how it happened and then the truth about what really happened.  After that happened, I truly and completely hated Harper.  I didn’t think she deserved a happy ending but because she’s the main character, of course she got one.

I didn’t even like Brandon even though I’m supposed to like him because he was such a pushover.  For someone who’s such a tough guy, I hated that he kept coming back to Harper.  After everything she put him through, after all of the fights he got into because of her and then the whole she wasn’t ready to have sex with him and then what she did, I couldn’t believe he went back to her.  After all of the crap that he went through because of her, he went back.

By the end of the book, I was reading it so that I could close the book and put these characters out of my head.  I had to finish it so that I could completely move on from the book because I really just couldn’t like any of them….and at the end, I was still pissed off about  Chase.  So did I like this one? It had its moments but for the most part, nope.

…and that’s your scoop!

This book is available from William Morrow. This book was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com

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