Title: Easy
Author: Tammara Webber
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: May 24th 2012
Source: I purchased a e-copy from Amazon
Blurb from Goodreads: A girl who believes trust can be misplaced, promises are made to be broken, and loyalty is an illusion. A boy who believes truth is relative, lies can mask unbearable pain, and guilt is eternal. Will what they find in each other validate their conclusions, or disprove them all?
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.
Review
First thoughts: Tammara Webber has become in one of my favorite authors. Before this year, I haven't even heard of her, and then one night I decided to purchased this book and since then I'm absolutely obsessed with her work.
Easy is a New Adult novel, full with romance, drama and some mysteries waiting to be solved. I read it in just one sitting, and I dreamed about the characters for more than a week after I finished the book.
I loved every single page of it. Since the very beginning, because, WHAT A START! Omg! You definitely have to give it a try, when you read the first 10 pages, I guarantee you, you won't be able to put it down. And I mean it. Because it's really difficult for me to find a book that can keep me on the edge of my sit, laughing out loud and worrying about the characters at the same time.
Plot and characters: In one hand we have Jacqueline, a really interesting character, a girl who has just started collage and who has made every decision about her life since her graduation, thinking about how it would affect her relationship with Kennedy, her high-school sweetheart.
Jackie is really innocent, easy to love and caring and would've done anything for Kennedy. And then, out of the blue, Kennedy, who -from my point of view- is a completely asshole, decides that he wants to explore new horizons and Jacqueline is a liability in his desire to pursue the happiness and success he thinks he deserves. So, he dumped her. Leaving her clueless and regretful since she could have taken chances to pursue her musical career instead of choosing to be Kennedy's tail.
On top of that, Kennedy's stupid best friends has been arousing Jacqueline, making it all worst. So, since then, she's kind of lost and trying to fit in a world where she used to belong just because of his ex.
Now, with everything as it is, she's failing a class for the first time in her entire life and needs the help of a tutor. There's where Landon comes into play. He's smart and writes the most interesting emails to Jacqueline as her tutor. She haven't met him in person, but she waits anxiously for every reply to her emails.
Then, alongside, there's Lucas, a mysterious guy who sits in the back of her economics class and who spends most of the classes drawing things on his notebook when he's not staring at Jacqueline, and the one who always seems to be around when she needs him the most.
Besides, now that Jacqueline is finally single, she's able to look at Lucas with different eyes and she starts to notice how handsome he is. This two guys seems to be like two sides of a coin. But they have much more in common than what Jackie could ever imagine.
Themes: I loved how the stalking, raping and bullying themes are treated in this book, don't be afraid, because this isn't an erotic kind of thing. The issue is addressed from a emotional point of view and it shows along the book the struggle and the way that Jacqueline has to overcome what had happened to her by helping other people that have went through similar situations.
This story has several great messages, about not giving up, about overcoming difficulties, about learning from your mistakes, about letting yourself trust someone else, it's beautiful in every sense of the word.
About the writing: The story is narrated in first person, from Jacqueline's point of view, which is great, because you can relate perfectly with her, knowing all her feelings and insecurities and overall she's a really believable character. I loved the writing, it is simple and familiar and the e-mails alternated with the prose give a very modern touch to the book.
I would recommend it for: Everyone. This is New Adult, but I didn't think it was too explicit, so I think anyone over 13 would understand it and enjoy it.
Rating:
Quotes:
“Love is not the absence of logic
but logic examined and recalculated
heated and curved to fit
inside the contours of the heart”
“Choosing to be with you, isn't a difficult decision, Jacqueline...It's easy. Incredibly easy.”
“I wanted to tell you that I just--I miss you. And maybe that sounds ridiculous--like we barely know each other, but between the emails and texts and... everything else, I felt like we did. Like we do. and I miss--I don't know how else to say it--I miss both of you.”
“You're full of contradictions, Ms. Wallace."
I looked up at him and arched a brow. "I'm a girl. That's part of the job description, Mr. Maxfield.”
“If someone had asked, "How does this compare to kissing Kennedy?" I would have answered, "Who?”
“The truth was, he now belonged only to my past, and it was time I begin to accept it, as much as it hurt to do so.”
About the author:
I write romantic Mature Young Adult / New Adult fiction.
EASY is my newest contemporary stand-alone novel. BETWEEN THE LINES is my contemporary series.
Reading was one of my first and earliest loves, and writing soon followed. My first book was about a lost bear, but my lack of ability as an illustrator convinced me to abandon that effort and concentrate on passing 3rd grade. I wrote sad romantic poetry in high school and penned my first half-novel when I was 19, for which I did lots of research on Vikings (the marauders, not the football team). It was accidentally destroyed when I stuffed it into the shredder at work.
Addictions: coffee and Cherry Garcia frozen yogurt. Also baby carrots, but not with coffee or frozen yogurt, because that would be disgusting. I love shopping for earrings, because they always fit - even if I occasionally forget to work out. I'm a hopeful romantic who adores novels with happy endings, because there are enough sad endings in real life.
