Reviewer: Holly Best Kind of Broken by Chelsea Fine
Series: Finding Fate #1
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: March 4th 2014
Genres: Fiction, New Adult
Pages: 352
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Series Rating:
New Adult Romance
"By turns humorous and heartbreaking, Best Kind Of Broken has become one of my favorites!" --- CORA CARMACK, New York Times bestselling author
SOMETIMES MOVING ON MEANS MOVING IN
Pixie Marshall wishes every day she could turn back time and fix the past. But she can't. And the damage is done. She's hoping that a summer of free room and board working with her aunt at the Willow Inn will help her forget. Except there's a problem: the resident handyman is none other than Levi Andrews. The handsome quarterback was once her friend-and maybe more-until everything changed in a life-shattering instant. She was hoping to avoid him, possibly forever. Now he's right down the hall and stirring up feelings Pixie thought she'd long buried . . .
Levi can't believe he's living with the one person who holds all his painful memories. More than anything he wants to make things right, but a simple "sorry" won't suffice-not when the tragedy that scarred them was his fault. Levi knows Pixie's better off without him, but every part of him screams to touch her, protect her, wrap her in his arms, and kiss away the pain. Yet even though she's so close, Pixie's heart seems more unreachable than ever. Seeing those stunning green eyes again has made one thing perfectly clear-he can't live without her.
(70,000 words)
This read more like YA than NA. Though both characters are in college, it felt like a high school romance.
The story is told in alternating first-person point-of-view chapters from Levi and Pixie. They’ve known each other since grade school, but something happened to separate them a year ago. Now they’re both back in their hometown, working at the inn Pixie’s aunt owns, and living two doors down from each one another. All they want to do is forget the other exists, but it’s impossible when they see each other every day. If only they could forget the feelings that tie them together. Or the tragedy that tore them apart.
I had a hard time accepting the reason for their estrangement. Not the circumstances, but their emotional reactions to what happened. They were both supposedly grieving and feeling guilty, but I didn’t really feel their grief so much as their guilt. It seemed strange that neither of them really seemed sad or grief-stricken. Guilty and broken, yes, but not sad. That didn’t ring true, especially after their shared tragedy is revealed.
That aside it was a good read. I enjoyed the angst and drama of their situation, though I wish we’d gotten the backstory much sooner. I hate being kept in the dark and I’m afraid the story started to drag for me, since it was so drawn out. The alternating POV changes made the story seemed disjointed at times, but I like that we got to see inside both their heads. I don’t think the book would have worked so well if we’d only gotten one side of the story.
The next book is another employee of the inn. I’m curious about him based on some things that happened in this book and plan to read his soon.
3.5 out 5