Rowena’s review of Stir Me Up by Sabrina Elkins.

Cami Broussard has her future all figured out. She’ll finish her senior year of high school, then go to work full-time as an apprentice chef in her father’s French restaurant, alongside her boyfriend, Luke. But then twenty-year-old ex-Marine Julian Wyatt comes to live with Cami’s family while recovering from serious injuries. And suddenly Cami finds herself questioning everything she thought she wanted.

Julian’s all attitude, challenges and intense green-brown eyes. But beneath that abrasive exterior is a man who just might be as lost as Cami’s starting to feel. And Cami can’t stop thinking about him. Talking to him. Wanting to kiss him. He’s got her seriously stirred up. Her senior year has just gotten a lot more complicated…

Cami thought she had her future all planned out before but things come up that change the course you were on and you either jump on board or you fall behind. Cami’s plans for the future were centered on her desire to become a chef, like her father.  Her father wants her to go to college and get a degree to give herself more options to fall back on than just becoming a chef and that’s a huge fight they keep having and as they fight about it, you can see just how close they are.

Julian Wyatt was injured overseas and is coming home to recover fro those injuries. His parents are both gone and his Aunt Estella took him in and raised him as his own so now that he’s out of the Marines, he’s moving in with her and her new family.

When Julian comes into the picture, he’s a mess.  He’s a pissed off mess and he took his madness out on everyone around him.  I wasn’t a fan of that. The way he treated his Aunt when she comes to see him at the hospital, the way that he treated Cami when he first moved into HER ROOM and started sleeping in HER BED, sending her to sleep in the freaking hallway upstairs, it really got to me. I wasn’t Team Julian when he first came onto the scene but over the course of the book, my walls started falling because Julian starts to come around and make amends for the ass that he was when he first came into Cami’s life.

I liked seeing them come together. The chemistry between them was noticeable from the very beginning and I loved seeing them get closer and closer with each page I turned. Their attraction to each other was cute and I liked that Cami didn’t let him get away with a lot of the crap he was trying to pull on everyone around him. When she threw that muffin at his head? I laughed out loud. I liked that she gave as good as she got and that his injuries weren’t what she saw when she looked at him. I liked that she helped him just as much as he helped her and I loved seeing their feelings grow over the course of the story.

Cami was a strong young woman who had plans and even though she wasn’t sure what they were, she knew that she wanted to do something in the food business, she wanted to cook and she knew that whatever she did in the future, it would be somewhere she’d be able to cook. When her feelings for her boyfriend Luke start to waver because of her feelings for Julian, I liked that Cami was mature enough to end it with Luke before things got too complicated with Julian. I liked that she didn’t drag her relationship out while developing the new one with Julian.

I liked seeing Julian come into his new life. He came a long way from that asshole in the beginning and seeing him try to figure out what happens next for him was a treat. He was competely redeemed in my eyes and I ended up really liking him.

This was a cute story, one that I enjoyed a lot. I’m glad that I read it and I would definitely recommend it.

Grade: 3 out of 5

This book is available from Harlequin Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.