Rowena’s review of If You Stay (Beautifully Broken #1) by Courtney Cole.
24-year old Pax Tate is an asshole.
Seriously.
He’s a tattooed, rock-hard bad-boy with a bad attitude to match.
But he’s got his reasons.
His mother died when Pax was seven, leaving a hole in his heart filled with guilt although he doesn’t understand why. What he does know is that he and his dad are left alone and with more issues than they can count.
As Pax grew up, he tried to be the kid his father always wanted; the perfect golden boy, but it didn’t work. His dad couldn’t overcome his grief long enough to notice and Pax couldn’t keep up the impossible perfect façade.
So he slipped far, far from it.
Now, he uses drugs and women to cope with the ugliness, the black void that he doesn’t want to deal with. If he pretends that the emptiness isn’t there, then it isn’t, right?
Wrong.
And it’s never more apparent than when he meets Mila.
Sweet, beautiful Mila Hill is the fresh air to his hardened frown, the beauty to his ugly heart. He doesn’t know how to not hurt her, but he quickly realizes that he’s got to figure it out because he needs her to breathe.
When memories of his mother’s death resurface from where he’s repressed them for so long, Mila is there to catch him when the guilt starts making sense. Mila is the one…the one who can save him from his broken troubled heart; from his issues, from the emptiness.
But only if he can stop being an asshole long enough to allow it.
He knows that. And he’s working on it.
But is that enough to make her stay?
I bought this book because I was in a New Adult reading mood and this was pretty cheap with an interesting blurb so I thought, “Why not?” I didn’t immediately read this book, instead holding off for a long while. When I finally read this book, it was because I got the second book in this series for review. So I dug right in.
This book starts with the hero, Pax, getting a blow job from a drugged up hooker in his car. After she finishes the BJ, he kicks her out of his car and sends her on her merry way…on foot. Miles from wherever she needed to be. So yeah, Pax is an asshole. He’s also big into drugs and after the hooker leaves, he proceeds to get high in his car and that high goes wrong.
The heroine Mila was in the park that Pax is parked at and she’s going for a walk. As she’s walking back to her car, she notices Pax’s car and when she gets closer, she sees that Pax is in trouble. He’s thrown up all over himself, he’s not breathing and she immediately jumps into action. She calls 911 and then does what anyone (not me) would have done. She gives Pax CPR, trying to revive him. I did mention that he threw up all over himself and then passed out? Alright, so …that’s quite a picture to start the story off.
So the ambulance comes and takes Pax to the hospital and because Mila is a good samaritan, she shows up at the hospital the next day to check on the druggy guy that passed out in his car. And the banter begins.
When Pax and Mila start their relationship, it felt kind of sudden. Like Mila should have taken a breather and got to know him before falling for his charm. I mean, all she knows about him is that he might be addicted to drugs and prostitutes but she jumps into a relationship with him anyway. I guess you can’t help how you feel, right?
As the story progresses, Pax falls harder and harder for Mila and he didn’t make any apologies for his feelings. He felt what he felt and that was that. Getting Mila to feel okay with her feelings for him and making sure she knew that he meant business about their future took some effort but eventually, he won her over and I was happy for him.
This wasn’t an easy book to read because there were times when I wanted to strangle both Pax and Mila but in the end, I was glad that I stuck it out because you could see the growth in both Pax and Mila throughout the book and I was happy with the way that they turned out.
This was a good book, a solid story and I ended up liking it.
Grade: 3 out of 5
This book is available from Forever. You can purchase it here or here in e-format.
