Reviewer: Tracy Falling Away by Penelope Douglas
Series: Fall Away series #3
Also in this series: Rival
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: January 6th 2015
Genres: New Adult
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Jaxon is the guy she’s supposed to avoid. K.C. is the girl he won’t let get away....
K. C. Carter has always followed the rules—until this year, when a mistake leaves her the talk of her college campus and her carefully arranged life comes crashing to a halt. Now she’s stuck in her small hometown for the summer to complete her court-ordered community service, and to make matters worse, trouble is living right next door.
Jaxon Trent is the worst kind of temptation and exactly what K.C. was supposed to stay away from in high school. But he never forgot her. She was the one girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day and the only one to ever say no. Fate has brought K.C. back into his life—except what he thought was a great twist of luck turns out to be too close for comfort. As they grow closer, he discovers that convincing K.C. to get out from her mother’s shadow is hard, but revealing the darkest parts of his soul is nearly impossible.…
Tracy’s review of Falling Away (Fall Away #3) by Penelope Douglas
From the moment that Jax saw KC Carter at school when he was 17 he knew that she was the one for him. He doesn’t do relationships but he wants her with everything he has. She, of course, wanted nothing to do with him. She was friends with him to a point but other than that? Nothing.
Two years after leaving home for college KC is back in town. She got into some trouble while in college in Arizona and she’ll spend the summer tutoring kids to complete her community service. She’s staying at her friend Tate’s house which happens to be right next door to Jax’s house. She realizes he’s grown up but she didn’t realize how grown up until she sees him. She keeps fighting her attraction to Jax – especially since she just got out of a 5 year relationship, but she really just wants to jump him.
Jax tries very hard to get KC to see him for an adult and a man worthy of her – but he’s still incredibly scared to get into any kind of relationship. When KC whose real name is Juliet and Jax start to get closer each of them needs to work through their own issues in order to be the perfect person for the other.
I really enjoyed Jax and Juliet’s story. Jax was such an enigma in the previous stories. Getting to know him and reading about how his childhood – which was more than horrifying – and how it shaped who he is as a new adult was both heart-breaking and enlightening. Trusting people was hard for him and because of that Jax tended to push people away when they got too close. When he did it with Juliet I was pissed but understood his thinking because of what we had learned about him.
Juliet was a young woman who did a boat load of self-discovery in this book. She worked through a ton of shit from her early life and realized that she didn’t need to be someone else as the person she was as Juliet was wonderful.
Jax and Juliet had many ups and downs during the book and frankly I wasn’t a huge fan of how they talked to each other at times – especially Jax to Juliet – but they always managed to work through their issues and I loved that they FINALLY got to where they needed to be. The story was intense, explosive and a very satisfying read.
Rating: 4 out of 5
This title is available from NAL. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
