Reviewer: Rowena You Before Anyone Else by Julie Cross, Mark Perini
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: August 2, 2016
Genres: New Adult
Pages: 400
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Model Finley needs someone to help her shed her "good girl" persona, so she'll try Eddie on for size.
New York City model Finley is fed up with hearing the same feedback at castings: she needs to take some serious action to wipe the "good girl" stamp from her resume if she wants to launch to stardom.
Enter Eddie Wells. He's shallow, predictable…and just as lost as Finley feels. Deep down, Finley is drawn to Eddie's bravado, his intensity. Except Eddie is hiding something. A big something. And when it surfaces, both loving and leaving Finley will become so much harder.
I haven’t read too many books by Julie Cross but the ones that I did read, I enjoyed so I looked forward to digging into this one.
Finley is a model who can’t land any big time jobs because she’s too sweet and too cute and fashion designers are booking the edgy models, the hint of bad girl models for their photo shoots and it’s pissing Fin off because she needs work. In an effort to shake her good girl vibe off, she has a one night stand with Eddie Wells who is new to the model scene.
Eddie is supposed to be at Princeton but his pretty looks have landed him with a modeling job, an agent and a life that he needs to spend some time trying to figure out. He’s got a secret that he’s keeping and Fin knows that she should stay away but like I always say, the heart wants what it wants and Eddie and Fin want each other so it’s hard to stay away when you really don’t want to.
Seeing these two try to figure out their futures made for a really interesting read. I was prepared for a lot of shallow characters that smoked too much pot, drank too much of everything and got on my nerves but what I got was people getting their hustle on. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of partying going on but Finley and Eddie were too focused on their lives and their jobs to partake in anything offered at any of those parties that all the other models were going to.
I liked both Eddie and Finley. I liked them individually but I also really liked them together. I loved that Eddie didn’t kid himself when he would think about Finley. He kept track of how many times he accidentally (not even remotely accidental) bumped into Finley in their apartment building and I loved how much Finley cared about everything and everyone. She was a nurturer and I loved seeing her with her family. I also really liked seeing Eddie fit himself into Finley’s family too because his family sucked big donkey balls.
I loved how he went from having on support system in his life to having Fin and her brothers and her Dad. His problems made my heart hurt and I loved how him and Fin became a team and tackled their individual problems together. The love that blossomed between them was too cute for words. I loved how they supported each other in the big things but even in the small things. I just loved them to pieces.
I was a bit bummed with the way that things worked out in the end because they didn’t end the way that I was expecting it to end but still, this was a great story about two models finding themselves and love in New York City. It was a hit for me.
Grade: 4 out of 5