Everly Daniels can't
seem to fall out of love with Grayson Dixon. Five years after locking
eyes with him, Everly is drawn to him like a moth to a flame. He has a
pull on her that she can't seem to break, even if she wanted to. Grayson
may be the love of her life, but he doesn't make it easy. He has built
walls around himself that only Everly can breach. But Grayson knows he
is not the good guy. He's reckless and careless, and even if Everly
brings a little color into his life, he worries he will destroy her, and
cares too much to let that happen. She has always been the shy
wallflower who is afraid to participate. But senior year, all that is
about to change.
Damaged Goods. Man. This was a rough one for me. By the way ... this book has been touted as a New Adult novel and it isn't. This is a straight up YA novel. The kids are in high school and they act like they are in middle school. Damaged Goods isn't filled with the maturity expected at a NA level. Aww ... I know that's mean ... especially since maturity is a relative term. There was a fair amount of eye-rolling on my part because it was just too much at times. TOO. MUCH.
This book follows a young lady as she tries to get over a boy that she had met years before. She met him in middle school and he got so far under her skin that she just couldn't let go. This is a common thing to happen, we've all had that one guy/gal that we just thought was the cat's meow and we were borderline obsessed with them. That young love is what initially drew me to this novel. But at the same time, that same young love is what made me realize that maybe I'm just too old to be reading these YA/NA novels now because it also irritated the crap out of me and made me want to put the book down.
Damaged Goods wasn't bad ... I just think it wasn't that good either. My blog is slowly shifting towards romance novels and while I can't get enough of them, I've realized that I have some pretty crazy standards about them these days. One of my biggest issues with this book (and this is a bit of a spoiler, so stop reading if you don't want to know!!) was that for a romance novel, the hero in the whole story is absent for about 75% of the book. The kicker is that you never really know for sure why. You're sitting here wondering what the hell is going on and why Everly would put up with being used and then there is a glimpse of a reason and just as fast, it disappears like a fart in the wind. Weird way of describing it, right? Well, it's not if you take into account the screwed up look that will appear on your face when these glimpses come and go.
The storyline also just dragged on. Mostly to the point of me having to skip paragraphs and eventually pages just so that I could get to the end of the book. Things just took so very long to happen and the in-between time was a gnarly experience. Also, by the time I got to the last page, I felt like I knew the characters but I didn't KNOW the characters. I had read all about their actions and you get plenty of inner thoughts but I didn't feel like I knew what made them tick. That's a little disconcerting if you don't fully understand a character at the end of 248 pages. I should know at least something other than the surface things.
This is also a series and the book ends on a cliff-hanger. But it is one that will forever be in the unknown for me because I know that I won't read another novel by this author. Hannigan is a decent writer but just not one for me. I wish you better luck than I had with Damaged Goods.
* I received this novel in exchange for an honest review *
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