Lila is so so damaged, and not just due to her past. Looking back on their story, I think she has to be the most broken down character I have read in a while. There were moments I loved her and other moments I could feel the eye roll coming on, but to be honest if I had parents like hers who knows how I would react to life. I mean they sure as hell aren't ever going to win parents of the year. Her mentality and esteem has taken a beaten between her past and present upbringing. In turn, Lila lives her life centered around the only means of survival she knows, which is to shut down completely. I know a lot of people hated her and were annoyed by her, but I saw her as a flawed crippled woman who hid behind materialistic stuff to replace the lack of affection and love she never once received.

Ethan, now Ethan I loved everything about his character. He was wicked delicious, even if he did frustrate me a time or two. LOVED him to death. I adored the fact that even when he was struggling with his own insecurities and issues, he never once let Lila dangle in the wind. No matter how broken and lost Ethan may have seemed, he always managed to look beyond his past and learn from those lessons to become a more worthy human being; someone others could trust and depend on even if all he really seeked in life was solitude.

Together they are the definition of opposite; Lila is pure rich girl while Ethan is the boy from the other side of the tracks, yet inside they both struggled to overcome some very similar and intense inner demons. Neither held any form of self-worth, nor did they feel deserving of love, hell neither felt worthy of anything that resembled good. Their friendship worked because it was based on a rule of no judgment, in fact, I think this is what actually saved them. When you looked past their outer appearances to the layers and vulnerability they kept hidden underneath you will find they were exactly what the other needed in order to heal properly.

My relationship with these characters felt a little like a teeter-totter. I bounced between liking them and thinking all right already, enough is enough. I struggled with the pacing of this book, in more ways than one. I am definitely not an insta love chick, and I really love stories that are built on a growing friendship (I tend to eat them right up); however, this relationship took forever to build. And when I say forever, I mean FOREVER, as in it never really went anywhere til' around 70%. Don't get me wrong they had their "moments", but they were just that, "moments". There was so much built up sexual tension between Lila and Ethan, that even I felt as though I was going to explode.

It's not that I didn't like Ethan and Lila because I loved them together; part of my issue was the heaviness to their relationship. They both lived in their heads so much they couldn't seem to get out of their own way. It felt as though they would take two steps forward and three steps back. The flight and fight syndrome mixed with their past and present obstacles sometimes allowed for the story to become overwhelming, as there just wasn't enough humor or romance to balance it all out.

I'm not sure, if it's me, the mood I am in, or if I am just outgrowing the NA genre. I am a huge fan of Jessica Sorensen; Callie & Kayden is one of my favorite books ever, and that couple literally broke me. So much so, I am too scared to read the second book in their series. Anyway, when I compare Ethan and Lila to them, it unfortunately comes up a bit short.

I guess the big question is would I recommend this book to others. Yes, I actually would. It wasn’t a bad book by any means, it just wasn’t one that worked perfectly for me, especially coming off of her other series, which was a 6 star read for me.

Thanks to Jessica Sorensen, Forever Grand Central Publishing, and Netgalley for providing me with an arc copy in exchange for an honest review. Quotes are from arc copy and subject to change in the final draft.