Rowena’s review of Heat of the Moment (Moment of Truth #1) by Lauren Barnholdt.
Before graduation, I promise to…learn to trust. In the first book in the Moment of Truth series, Lyla discovers that trusting her head might be easy but trusting her heart is a whole other matter.
Each book in this paperback original series is told from the perspective of a different girl—Lyla, Aven, and Quinn—former best friends who wrote emails to their future selves back in freshman year about one thing they hope to accomplish before they graduate. When the emails get delivered on the first morning of their senior trip all three girls will spend the next three days trying to keep the promises they made to themselves four years ago. While each book follow’s one girl’s life-changing adventure, you have to read them all to get the whole story, including why they’re no longer friends and whether they can get their friendship back on track.
Lyla McAfee had all but forgotten the email that she wrote to herself freshman year and scheduled to be delivered right before graduation—the one promising that she’d learn to trust by the end of senior year. But when she receives it the first morning of her senior trip to Florida her life is sent into a tailspin. Soon she’s questioning her seemingly perfect relationship with her boyfriend, Derrick; her attraction to the school player, Beckett; and whether ending her friendship with Aven and Quinn, her former BFFs, was one of the biggest mistakes of her life.
The first book in a captivating summer trilogy, Heat of the Moment flawlessly balances romance and humor as Lyla embarks on her totally reluctant but completely irresistible journey of self-discovery. And readers will have a chance to discover whole truth about the fight that ended Lyla, Quinn, and Aven’s friendship in the next two installments of the series, coming out later the same summer!
Lauren Barnholdt is hit or miss with a lot of readers but for me, she’s mostly been a hit. The last couple of books she’s released haven’t been my favorites but I still like her as an author so I try to give her books a go when they hit the review shelves.
This book is the first in her new Moment of Truth series about three ex best friends who are in their senior of high school and have received emails that they sent to each other back when they were freshman in high school. Back before their friendships fell apart.
The first of the friends, Lyla McAfee’s email said, “Before I graduate, I’ll learn to trust”. Lyla hasn’t trusted anyone in a very long time. She doesn’t really have any true friends, not since her friends betrayed her and caused a whole lot of drama in her family. She’s kept to herself and with her boyfriend Derrick.
Lyla is on her way to her senior trip to Florida with her boyfriend and she’s determined to lose her virginity because she feels that it’s time. Things have been going pretty perfect with Derrick but when she misses the bus to the airport and he doesn’t call to check up on her, a girl’s got to wonder…how perfect are things if he doesn’t seem to care that you might miss the senior trip? Lyla has got a lot on her mind and this trip away is supposed to be perfect but when the school play boy, Beckett starts coming around, things get pretty crazy.
Right from the jump, I liked Beckett. I liked him a lot more than I liked Derrick. The minute Lyla wasn’t on the bus and Derrick didn’t call, my spidey senses started going off like crazy and then when they get to the airport and Derrick explained away his non-call, my spidey senses continued to beep beep beep their way around my head. But then the book takes off and then Lyla starts to get on my nerves.
Like, a lot.
She makes every bad decision on the planet and even in the end, she’s making stupid assumptions and thinking stupid shit that pissed me right off. She was so immature and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Beckett liked her so much. I thought Beckett deserved far better than the likes of Lyla. She was so dumb for so much of the book. She kind of reminded me of Penn from Barnholdt’s book Through to You. Full of dumb shit for far too long.
In the end, I didn’t hate her but I still didn’t really like her and I’m hoping that will change in the next book because I still want to read the other books. The friendship between Lyla, Aven and Quinn is something that is drawing me to continue the series. I think it’s Quinn’s book and I’m looking forward to digging into that one. Quinn and Aven are interesting characters and I can’t wait to read more of them. I liked them more than I liked Lyla so I’m hopeful that they won’t drive me too crazy in their books.
Grade: 2.5 out of 5
This book is available from Harper Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.