Review: Easy

Easy, by Tammara Webber. The GoodReads summary:

When Jacqueline follows her longtime boyfriend to the college of his choice, the last thing she expects is a breakup two months into sophomore year. After two weeks in shock, she wakes up to her new reality: she's single, attending a state university instead of a music conservatory, ignored by her former circle of friends, and failing a class for the first time in her life.

Leaving a party alone, Jacqueline is assaulted by her ex's frat brother. Rescued by a stranger who seems to be in the right place at the right time, she wants nothing more than to forget the attack and that night--but her savior, Lucas, sits on the back row of her econ class, sketching in a notebook and staring at her. Her friends nominate him to be the perfect rebound.

When her attacker turns stalker, Jacqueline has a choice: crumple in defeat or learn to fight back. Lucas remains protective, but he's hiding secrets of his own. Suddenly appearances are everything, and knowing who to trust is anything but easy.

First of all, I love the genre—new adult. I haven’t read too many from this genre yet, but my positive experience with Easy makes me want to explore the genre some more. There’s something to be said for characters who are a little more mature and developed than the usual 16 year olds I read about. Plus, with characters in college, any drinking and sex there may be doesn’t make me cringe because, well, they’re in college and theoretically mature enough to deal with it.

Jacqueline is an awesome main character. I thought she was quite realistic (and by realistic I of course mean I saw a lot of myself in her). Some really crappy stuff happens to her, but I admire the way she handles herself and her situation. She doesn’t always immediately do the “right” thing, but I could understand why she does what she does in her circumstances, and she always ends up eventually making good choices. (Was that vague enough for you? I was trying to get my point across without spoilers).

I enjoyed her best friend a lot (I just can’t remember her name at this point). I liked that although they were totally different, they had each other’s back and gave unconditional love and support when needed. And I love that her friend signs them up for self-defense classes—if that's not a sign of true friendship, I don't know what is, especially given the situation Jacqueline finds herself in.

Lucas/Landon . . . I like them both. The romance isn’t really a love triangle, so don’t let that turn you off if you usually avoid that kind of thing. And what can I say? Lucas is HOT. For realz, you guys. Ignore the emo boy on the cover, because that kid’s got nothing on Lucas. He’s that reformed bad boy type, which I’m always a sucker for. And he has tattoos. I have a total weakness for hot boys with tattoos. It’s like take a hot boy, give him a few well-placed tattoos, and his hotness factor increases by approximately 67.45 percent. Anywho, he’s really supportive of Jacqueline without getting too unrealistic—he makes some annoying boy mistakes, after all, but he always bounces back from them and stayed in my good graces. Plus, from the beginning you know that Lucas had a really rough past, so getting to slowly uncover the mystery of his life only made me more attached to him.

The only, I don’t know, warning (I guess?) I have about the book is that the making out (and beyond) gets pretty hot and heavy. It was never anything I was uncomfortable reading, but if you’re more sensitive about that kind of stuff, you might want to skip some parts. Because the author definitely does not shy away from describing pretty much everything.

Overall, I really, really liked this book. It was everything I wanted out of a contemporary at the moment, and I can’t think of anything about it that disappointed me.

Rating: 4.5 / 5