Published: May 26th 2015 by Lyrical Press Series: Book #1 College of Charleston
I really liked the concept of The List- that Annie wanted to experience all that college has to offer. However, this is also kind of a flawed concept, in the sense that Annie is putting pressure on herself to complete the list in a certain time frame, and I also question how she came up with the items on the list; was it really things she wanted to do, or things she thought she should be doing?
I really appreciated the female friendship in this book. Often when reading books about 'romance' the female friendship is in the background to the central romance. However, in this book I found myself more interested in the friendship between Annie and Cami. I am also excited to learn that the next book in the series will be from the POV of Cami. I am pleased to hear this as I found that the underlying issues were only explored at a surface level with Cami, and I look forward to reading more.
Ok so I know that I just wrote that I enjoyed the female friendship portrayal more so than the romance, but seriously the romance in this book made me want to scream. The sexual tension between the characters was evident, and I found myself thinking that I wish the men were less like gentlemen and would just get on with it! However, by the end of the book I was glad that the male characters were gentlemen as I think this was something that Annie needed (even though she wanted to escape the overprotective, over sensitive men).
I really appreciated the exploration of trauma on a family, and how this can effect the family unit. Although, I will not say too much on the trauma as I do not want to 'spoil' it, I think it is safe to say that I believe that Kate accurately portrayed what can happen to a family when they have experienced trauma. The complete identity change that trauma can cause is very sad, but also very real. I appreciated the exploration of this in the book.
I found myself thinking that Annie was younger than what she actually was. I think the reason for this was this was the first time in her life she was able to experience what it is like being 'grown up', so she was going through a sort of rebellious stage later than when I normally would expect to see it (i.e. often by 20 one would expect that often people would have had even a small amount of alcohol, or at least be exposed to other peers drinking alcohol). Therefore, I found myself feeling annoyed at Annie at times as she seemed completely naive in a sense, and seemed to lack any respect for herself, when really I had to keep reminding myself that she has never had the opportunity to be a 'grown up' before. I appreciated this differing perspective.
4/5 Kudos to the author. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.
Love Mis(sy)Understood x
