Sunday, December 1, 2013

How To Love by Katie Cotugno book review by Eleni

Author: Katie Cotugno
Release Date: October 1st 2013
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pages: 389
Rating: 4 stars
Buy at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Before: Reena Montero has loved Sawyer LeGrande for as long as she can remember: as natural as breathing, as endless as time. But he’s never seemed to notice that Reena even exists…until one day, impossibly, he does. Reena and Sawyer fall in messy, complicated love. But then Sawyer disappears from their humid Florida town without a word, leaving a devastated—and pregnant—Reena behind.

After: Almost three years have passed, and there’s a new love in Reena’s life: her daughter, Hannah. Reena’s gotten used to being without Sawyer, and she’s finally getting the hang of this strange, unexpected life. But just as swiftly and suddenly as he disappeared, Sawyer turns up again. Reena doesn’t want anything to do with him, though she’d be lying if she said Sawyer’s being back wasn’t stirring something in her. After everything that’s happened, can Reena really let herself love Sawyer LeGrande again?

In this breathtaking debut, Katie Cotugno weaves together the story of one couple falling in love—twice.


Review:

I AM SO CONFUSED AND CONFLICTED OVER THIS BOOK THAT I KEEP THINKING AND THINKING ABOUT IT.
The book tells the story of Sawyer and Reena two completely different individuals who fall in love and do everything wrong or at least wrong in the eyes of a 20-year old that went through this shit and thought it was right. sigh. 
  Reena was in love with Sawyer since she could remember herself and at the age of 15 - socially awkward and by nature quite sees her best friend hooking up with Sawyer - then life goes to hell.
She stops speaking with her friend and spends 7 months alone working after school and trying to cope with life and heartbreak until Sawyer reaches out to her.
The book is divided in before and after chapters making it totally exciting for the reader (no sarcasm there) to want to read more from the Before and more of the After story. Now here comes the conflict. I don;t know if i hate Sawyer from the Before or I love him because he is an 18 year old that messed everything up for himself and Reena due to personal problems and drugs but he is there every time for her because he loved her. 
Now that I think about it i have an explanation for his actions - it was Reena, because she wanted to leave the shitty town , travel the world and leave Sawyer behind to bear with heartbreak. Eventually he is the one that walks out on her leaving her pregnant (he didn't know) and alone to cope with her religious father and a judgmental town.

The After story is two years later when Reena has a baby and suddenly Sawyer returns from the dead. No one knew where he was or what he did and of course they were not sure if he was alive. She turns her life upside down and the old feelings start to resurface again once she spends a little time with him. She makes some hasty decisions right there and then and goes back to his house for ''dinner'' and she totally loses it when they kiss -so she takes 5 steps back. I hated the After story because the only person that actually showed some kind of emotion was Sawyer and at some point i really really threw the book on the wall because Reena was so stupid. 
The writing makes the reading even more interesting and simply you can;'t put the book down no matter how much you want it to. I loved the characters but I would like to see a little more emotion and a little more of Sawyer. Reena was a Snow Queen with absolutely no expression of emotion and that was really frustrating because -lets all admit it - who likes a character like that?
Otherwise the book is an amazing read that I totally related with the characters and the story itself because as a sketchy teenager I was i went through the same shit- sans the pregnancy - and now I am married to the boy that made my life so interesting and crazy.

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