Official Synopsis:

Being young is all about the experiences: the first time you skip school, the first time you fall in love…the first time someone holds a gun to your head.

After being held hostage during a robbery at the local convenience store, seventeen-year-old Edie finds her attitude about life shattered. Unwilling to put up with the snobbery and bullying at her private school, she enrolls at the local public high school, crossing paths with John. The boy who risked his life to save hers.

While Edie’s beginning to run wild, however, John’s just starting to settle down. After years of partying and dealing drugs with his older brother, he’s going straight—getting to class on time, and thinking about the future.

An unlikely bond grows between the two as John keeps Edie out of trouble and helps her broaden her horizons. But when he helps her out with another first—losing her virginity—their friendship gets complicated.

Meanwhile, Edie and John are pulled back into the dangerous world they narrowly escaped. They were lucky to survive the first time, but this time they have more to lose—each other.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Review:

I remember when this book first came out. It originally had a different cover than the one it has now. The plot of it intrigued me then, so I was happy to learn that it’s a title on Kindle Unlimited. The book is told from Edie’s point of view.

While the events that start off the novel are unfortunate in nature, Kylie writes them well. How she deals with the PTSD and aftermath is really interesting, because we get to see how a traumatic experience (such as the one that Edie and John experience in the book) impacts different facets of their lives in different ways long after the imminent danger has passed.

Honestly, I haven’t read a whole lot of young adult novels where the main character deals with insecurities about her weight (as well as the bullying that is related to that), but I liked getting to see how Edie’s self-confidence developed throughout the book.

Her and John developed nicely as a couple. I guess the book is sort of a slow burn, I’m not quite sure how long it was before they got together (I’m not counting this as a spoiler because…we all knew it was going to happen you guys, I mean, c’mon.) but it definitely wasn’t right away. They both had pretty good character development, and I loved following them throughout the story. I also liked the addition of their friends, Hang and Anders.

At the end, the book comes full circle (you’ll have to read the book to find out what I mean) and I was surprised to find out that I had less than 15 pages left when a huge event was happening. Definitely stressed me out when I realized that John and Edie *might* not get the happy ending that I had envisioned for them.

Overall, aside from a few inconsistencies that were easily overlooked, this was a really good book, and I would recommend it to readers 17+ due to the sexual content that happens later on in the story.