[ARC REVIEW] “Kiss to Remember” (Blairwood University #4) By: Anna B. Doe

What is “Kiss to Remember” by Anna B. Doe about?

Some moments define the trajectory of your life.

Grace Shelton has experienced her fair share of loss and trauma, but moving to Blairwood is her chance for a new beginning.

For Trent Remington, going to college is a chance to break free of his overprotective parents and finally play basketball.

Some moments will change it forever.

When Grace collides into Trent by accident, she sees the last person she ever expected to find – the boy that’s been haunting her dreams for the past two years. Trent might belong to another girl, but he can’t seem to get the redhead with the sad eyes out of his mind no matter how hard he tries.

Together, they might risk everything for a chance at love, but will a kiss be enough to make him remember?

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Review:

I first met Grace over a year ago when I read the prequel to this book, “Kiss Before Midnight.” At the time, it was part of the Mistletoe Kisses anthology, but it’s available to be read for free now!

This book also features and mentions characters from previous books in the Blairwood University series, as well as characters from Anna’s New York Knights series.

It was interesting to see the characters more grown up now and in college, although for some reason I kept thinking they were younger than their classmates that I had read about in the previous books (they are, but only by a year or so). I think that’s because I was still imagining them as their sixteen-year-old selves that they are in “Kiss Before Midnight.”

It’s a bit difficult to really go into depth about the book in this review because doing so would include spoilers of the biggest plot reveal. You kind of have an idea throughout the book that a reveal is coming, you just won’t know all of the details until about 80% of the way through. After everything is explained though, Ashley’s actions throughout the book make a lot more sense, and make her character more likable — even though I thought she was actually pretty likable despite her jealousy towards Grace. She was exactly right about Trent and Grace’s feelings for each other, and I did feel bad for her. Regardless of any plot reveal that was to come, Trent was dating Ashley when he wanted to be with Grace, and even though he acknowledges he should’ve broken up with her a long time ago, that doesn’t make his actions (or well, almost actions) okay — he was still lying to and manipulating Ashley by telling her she had nothing to worry about, when he knew that wasn’t true.

Something that I think would’ve been interesting to see/hear would’ve been more of an explanation into Trent’s parents and why they ended up treating their son the way that they did, aside from them feeling like they had no choice/were doing the best that they could think of, because what they did seemed really risky.

Trent blames everyone else, including Ashley and Matteo, for not noticing the differences between him before the accident versus after, which I didn’t think was fair at all. What actually ended up happening was something straight out of a Lifetime movie, and definitely not where one’s mind would naturally go to, especially when the reality that a traumatic brain injury can alter a person’s memories and personality is much more likely.

There was a great ensemble cast in this book, and I loved Grace’s friendships with Jade, Yasmin, and Rei — Callie and Nixon make appearances too! The only things that distracted me a bit throughout the book were that Anna’s writing style is easy to read and get into with the exception of two things — the characters’ brows are mentioned very often, and I noticed a lot of the characters ‘jabbing’ their fingers at people, enough for it to become distracting. Something else that I think might’ve felt more believable would’ve been if Mason and Grace had dated for long prior to him ghosting her. I totally get that she liked him a lot before they went on their first date, and it was extremely upsetting not to hear from him again, but the two of them almost had a love-at-first-sight thing going on that seemed more like a really big crush, not love, since they didn’t know each other that well based on only actually hanging out one time for a few hours. Overlooking that part though, I liked how their relationship paralleled the past, and trying to figure out the details of the impending plot reveal made it easy to keep reading.

Overall, I think this was a strong edition to the series, and I’m so thankful to Anna for sending me an ARC of the book! As with all new adult books, I recommend it for 18+ due to some of the sexual content, but you can be the judge of that. You can read the book now for free on Kindle Unlimited, and check out my reviews and playlists of more of her books down below.

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