Review: Take A Gamble by Rachael Brownell

Summary

One summer.
One chance meeting.
One devastating phone call.

MacKenna Trist is not happy about spending a month with her family in Myrtle Beach. She would rather be at home, hanging out with her friends, before starting her senior year of high school. That is, until she meets the guy staying in the beach house next door.

Roe Gamble is speechless when he first lays eyes on Mac. Normally, pretty girls are his specialty but not this girl. From this girl, he wants more. More of everything. More than she can give him. Most importantly, more time to show her how he feels about her.

But time is working against them in more ways than one.

How much time do you really need to fall in love?

What would you gamble to hold onto it?

Rating

Review

If there was ever a book that could be considered both New Adult and Young Adult, this is it. I don't think that it truly fits in just one of those categories. Okay ... Take A Gamble ... first of all, this is from an author that is new to me. I hadn't picked up anything by her before but I probably will now. Take A Gamble is basically a coming of age novel but there is nothing basic about it. There is love at first sight, there is lost love, there is new love ... with tons of other things but I don't want to spoil your first read through. 

The teenage characters were fairly easy to relate to but at the same time, I didn't really connect with them either. It's hard to explain. These teenagers went through a few things that I didn't have to go through when I was their age but they went through a lot of things that I did. It was fairly predictable in the middle of the novel. Things just seemed laid out a bit too neatly sometimes. I like a bit of mystery even in romance novels. I like not really knowing what is going to happen yet and I didn't get that completely with this one. Now the ending really threw me for a loop. I was genuinely surprised ... I wish that there were a few more of those moments within the heart of the novel. I think that it could have added a bit. There were a few obstacles that Mac & Roe went through and it felt a little too easy sometimes ... like there should have been a bit more struggle to come out on top. A bit more grittiness would have been great. Make those characters really struggle!! I want to read about how they were dumped into a big crater of a problem and they clawed their way out!! 

All in all, it was a good book - it kept my attention and I enjoyed reading it (even if there weren't enough struggles). Oh ... wait ... there was one thing. And this drove me CRAZY during the entire novel. The main character is Mac. Her love interest is Roe. Mac. Roe. Mac and Roe. MacAndRoe. McEnroe. The tennis player. John McEnroe. That's whose face I saw every time I read the names Mac and Roe. Every. Single. Time. I don't think I would be so irritated by it if John McEnroe looked like Channing Tatum but McEnroe is NO Channing Tatum. No. Just, no.

Well written novel, fast paced and heart-warming. I'll definitely read another novel by Brownell. As long as it isn't about Mac and Roe. I just can't go through that name thing again. 

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