Book Review: Never Never: Part (Never Never #3) by Colleen Hoover & Tarryn Fisher

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: January 19, 2016
Publisher: Hoover Ink
77 Pages

New York Times bestselling authors Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher are back with the much-anticipated final installment in the Never Never novella series. 

Together, Silas Nash and Charlize Wynwood must look deeper into the past to find out who they were and who they want to be. With time ticking down, the couple are in a race to find the answers they need before they lose everything. Can they regain what they once had? And will it restore who they once were?

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So that ending...

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This series was an odd one. The first book had me confused and disliking the characters, but I was interested. The second book had me liking Silas and throwing around theories. And then the third came out.

 

Whereas the first two had intrigue and mystery, the third felt just like a sappy teen romance novel. Now, I've never read any other of Fisher's works, but I've read all of Hoover's and I know that there's talent in this writing so I expected to be blown away and shocked by the big reveal. When the "theory" of their memory loss was first presented, I scoffed. No way would the authors go that route. It's too, umm..., wishy-washy, for lack of a better term. But alas...

The reasoning behind everything just made no sense. In a sense I felt let down by it all. Here was a series that was so unique in it's plot and there's so much information being thrown around and that's what the author's chose to do with it? 

It wasn't horrible. I did enjoy the story, even if I didn't like one of the main characters. But the ending was weak.

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Book Review: Never Never: Part 2 (Never Never #2) by Colleen Hoover & Tarryn Fisher

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: May 17, 2015
Publisher: Hoover Ink
111 Pages

“Never forget that I was your first real kiss. Never forget that you’ll be my last.
And never stop loving me between all of them.
Never stop, Charlie.
Never forget.”

Silas races against time as more truths unravel, while others twist tighter together. And now, the stakes are higher as Silas’ control slips and others begin to point fingers. Charlie is in trouble and he must be the one to bridge the chasm between their past and their present. Because somewhere between I love yous and Never Nevers and Never Agains, a truth they can't imagine, beckons to be found.

“Where are you, Charlie?”

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So...I'm still confused, but I'm starting to put together little theories in my head with the little tidbits of information we do have. My theories are slightly extreme, not going to lie.

Never Never Part 1 left off with Charlie missing and Silas on the verge of losing his memories again. Part 2 picks up right where it's predecessor left off. Silas wakes in his car with no memory of who he is. Confused and disoriented, he tries to piece together the mystery of what's happening to them by going through all of the letters he wrote to himself. 

While I wasn't a huge fan of the first book, I enjoyed this one. I think it's because we actually got more out of the story here. The first was just a giant WTF moment while in the second, we know about the memory loss but now we are finding out more about their pasts and the clues are actually leading somewhere. I feel like I'm part of the Scooby gang frantically trying to solve the mystery.

There's not a whole lot of Charlie, which makes me happy. I'm still not a fan of hers and the more we learn about her, the more I just don't like her. Instead, we mostly get Silas. I feel for him, I really do. He's so obviously in love with Charlie (though I have no clue why) and so desperate to find her, even if he can't remember why he wants to do this. Helping him on his mission is his brother Landon, who is a cutie in his own right. 

The book ends on another cliff hanger which I was unprepared for. I thought this was a two-parter and the closer I got to the end, the more panicked I was because there was no way it was going to be solved with less than 4% remaining on my kindle. All in all, a much better showing with this one but still...

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Book Review: Confess by Colleen Hoover

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: March 10, 2015
Publisher: Atria Books
320 Pages

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a new novel about risking everything for love—and finding your heart somewhere between the truth and lies.

Auburn Reed has her entire life mapped out. Her goals are in sight and there’s no room for mistakes. But when she walks into a Dallas art studio in search of a job, she doesn’t expect to find a deep attraction to the enigmatic artist who works there, Owen Gentry.

For once, Auburn takes a risk and puts her heart in control, only to discover Owen is keeping major secrets from coming out. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything important to Auburn, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it.

The last thing Owen wants is to lose Auburn, but he can’t seem to convince her that truth is sometimes as subjective as art. All he would have to do to save their relationship is confess. But in this case, the confession could be much more destructive than the actual sin…

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I feel like this is me after the end of almost all of Colleen Hoover's books.

Ok, it's not a big secret that I adore Colleen Hoover. But while I adore her and her writing, I'm not always in love with her stories. So after [book:Ugly Love|17788401], I was a little bit worried about connecting with her characters. Then I read Confess and damn...

The story begins with 15-year old Auburn Reed and her dying boyfriend, Adam, in the hospital struggling to say goodbye to each other for the last time. It's a sad, emotional scene that sets the stage for Auburn's troubled state for the rest of the novel. 5 years later, she's living in Texas, working for a job she hates and just trying to make it day by day.

Owen Gentry is an artist who owns his own studio. He designs his paintings based on anonymous confessions he receives from people. Like Auburn, he is also dealing with events from his past and uses his art to hide in. When he meets Auburn, she forces his past to come forth as well as hers.

This book was very intense and at times I couldn't help but think "this is too much for one person to have gone through", but as the events unraveled and I learned about these two, my heart just broke for them. Without giving away the story, Auburn is a very strong young woman and even though she makes some decisions that no one would agree with, when you know her reasoning, you can't help but understand.

I've also read a lot of reviews about the istalove in this book. I'm not a huge fan of instalove, I feel that it's very overused in this genre and comes off completely unbelievable. However, in Confess, I can see how people call it instalove on Owen's part, but as his past unravels, it wasn't so much instalove for me and I found myself okay with how it was portrayed.

There were also some heavy scenarios here that shocked me. Hoover touches on manipulation, abuse, substance abuse, and rape.

Hoover has a knack for writing the dramatic and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but she always sucks me in. It was the last chapter that really broke me and brought the whole story full circle.

Book Review: Never Never (Never Never #1) by Colleen Hoover & Tarryn Fisher

The blurb as seen on Goodreads:
Release Date: January 7, 2015
Publisher: Hoover Ink
159 Pages

Best friends since they could walk. In love since the age of fourteen.
Complete strangers since this morning.
He'll do anything to remember. She'll do anything to forget. 

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So...

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This book was extremely hard for me to rate and I know that it's because it's a two part novella. I felt like we're only getting half of the story, so how should I rate it?

Well, let me just start off by saying that I would read anything Colleen Hoover puts out. I may not always love her stories, but I love her writing style and Never Never wasn't any different. Having never read any of Tarryn Fisher, I still found myself enjoying the writing style.

Now I love a good mystery. But this was just one giant "WTF". My head was spinning by the end trying to figure everything out. Nothing was concluded, not even something small. It really seemed like a nice marketing gimmick, "Want answers, buy our next book!". (I think I may be a little upset that this was initially one book then was split into 2.)

Then there were the characters. I did not like Charlie at all and while Silas seemed like a good character, the more that came out about him just put him on the same level as Charlie.

I will be reading the next installment because I really want to know what happens, but I'm just not a fan of how it was presented.

*My opinion of the story as a whole may change pending the outcome of the entire product.*

 

Teaser Tuesday: Losing Hope (Hopeless #2) & The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten #2)

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading!

To participate, all you have to do is:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can ad the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

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"I can't believe I'm not going back to school, I just never thought it would come to that. I'm blaming you for that one, too."
Chapter Six-and-a-half, Page 58
Losing Hope (Hopeless #2) by Colleen Hoover

"Her dress, made of leaves, petals and wispy cloth, left her shoulders and arms bare, and her skin gave off a faint glow as if sunlit, even though it was the middle of the night. Light and warmth seemed to pulse around her, and my room smelled of cut grass and leaves."

Chapter Five: The Vanished Prince, 15% e-ARC

The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten #2)
by Julie Kagawa

What are you reading this week?

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