Sunday, January 31, 2016

Review: You Were Mine by Abbi Glines (Rosemary Beach, #9)



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Summary
(from goodreads)

From #1 "New York Times" bestselling author Abbi Glines comes a brand-new Rosemary Beach novel about Tripp Newark and his hidden romantic past with Bethy Lowry. 

In the eyes of the wealthy playboys who frequent Kerrington Country Club in Rosemary Beach, Tripp Newark is a hero. Under pressure from his parents to become a lawyer and lead a conservative, upper-class life, Tripp disappeared from town five years ago to travel the world, forfeiting the opportunity to inherit millions. Yet few know what he was really running from...

Bethy Lowry was unraveling long before her boyfriend drowned in a riptide trying to save her after she'd had one too many drinks--again. A trailer park kid working as a cart girl among the wealthy patrons of Kerrington Country Club, Bethy has always been impressionable. But five years ago, before she earned her reputation as a hard-drinking, easy girl, she had spent a single summer with Tripp Newark that changed her life forever...



Read from: January 18 to January 19, 2016
Read on: Owned Paperback


Review:



I was really excited when I saw this book was on Bethy. She was always a footnote in the other books; always there but never up front. Up until the tragic events that occurred in the previous books (if you haven't read the previous books, please stop reading because there might be spoilers), I never believed we would get a full book with her. I maybe expected a novella about her and Jace or something like that, but not a book.

Which is why I was quite happy that Abbi wrote her story. I really liked to read about what happened to her to have become the girl we first met in the first book. True, nothing could have happened for her to be like this. She could have been just a girl enjoying life and sex, but I always felt like there was something behind her facade, but I will admit that as her past unfolded, it wasn’t something I completely expected.

Learning about her and Tripp’s history while reading the previous book had been somewhat a surprise, but I was intrigued as how they had met and how it all ended. Reading about it made me feel guilty sometimes for rooting for them because I really loved her with Jace, but it was obvious now that he wasn’t her first big love; his cousin was.

Now, many years have passed and Tripp wants nothing more than to protect her and win her back, but he doesn’t have it easy. Guilt, hate and so many harsh feelings are lodged in Bethy’s heart that she doesn’t give him much chance to make-up for the heartache he caused her when he left.

And while I admired Tripp's determination to win Bethy's heart again, it sometimes got on my nerves because it was borderline obsessed. I wouldn't have been able to cope with that kind of behaviour if it was to happen to me and I believe the only reason Bethy let it go was mostly because she never got over him.

This book talks a lot about regrets, guilt and miscommunications. I seriously felt sometimes to sit both of them down and just like ask them to actually say what was on their mind as the other person doesn’t misunderstand the other.

But let’s be honest here, without those, there wouldn’t be a book because it’s those obstacles that make you root for them and you want them to succeed.

Jace’s presence is felt throughout the book and I liked that Abbi wrote it that way. I didn’t feel like she was trying to dismiss Bethy’s love for Jace. She loved him; but just not like she loved Tripp.

I will admit though that I felt the ending sort of rushed. I wouldn’t have minded that Abbi took another 50 or 100 pages to really wrap up Bethy and Tripp’s story since there was only going to be one book about them.

I’m trying to keep this review spoiler free, so I will stop here, but it was another book by Abbi that I enjoyed and I’m looking forward to continue the series with the next books.

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