Goodreads Synopsis: 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:

 

Easy was one of those books that I’ve had on my tbr for forever, has got amazing reviews, and I thought I just need to read this book already! Of course with such high initial expectations comes the disappointment. Don’t get me wrong I did enjoy this book very much but there was something lacking.

 

Lets start with the positives…..I loved her best friend!! She was so supportive of Jacqueline when she told her what happened with Buck and even broke up with her boyfriend because he wasn’t taking the situation seriously, major best friend goals! A lot of times in YA and NA stories there is drama created between friends for stupid reasons but this story dealt with strong female friendships which was refreshing.

 

This story also deals with the subject of rape and the author conveyed this issue in a respectable manner. I loved the message this story portrayed about how important it is for us girls to stick together and rally behind one another when it comes to getting justice for this horrible offense. There is still a lot of stigma around this issue which makes it difficult for victims to speak up out of fear of slut-shaming which shouldn’t be the case.

 

I did feel the story was a bit predictable and the main characters decisions seemed to revolve around boys - she followed her high school boyfriend to the college of his choice, didn’t go to a lecture for 2 weeks because of break-up with said boy, didn’t want to go to tutoring sessions because another boy might be there….you get the picture. I also felt she should have been more aware of her surroundings after what happened with Buck, especially as he showed no remorse and any time they crossed paths he was being really creepy, is that not just common sense?

 

I did give this 4 stars as I did really enjoy the book and couldn’t put it down until I had it read, however there was something missing for me. At times I expected big confrontations between characters but they never happened. I was definitely expecting more from the story but I can’t fault how much I enjoyed it. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting a fast, easy read, with a cute romance.

Quick review for a quick read. I feel like I could write a book for the problems in this narrative alone, but I think I'll try to summarize in brief what worked in this book for me and what didn't.

I'll start with the positive: Lucas didn't seem as much of a cardboard character in this book as the previous book. I liked the fact that Webber delved a bit into his childhood and pains over losing his mother (which was a huge significance in the previous book, but it felt tacked on in the latter parts of "Easy"). I also liked the fact that even with this book being a "retelling" of certain events, there was more than enough new material to make it not feel like a rehash of "Easy". Other New Adult authors haven't handled this well in terms of the whole "retelling" from the hero's perspective (and believe me, reading cut and pasted text is NOT fun as a reader. It's gotten to the point where it's done so much that it's become a cliche, and while some can make it work, it's usually far and few between based on how it's done), so I'm glad that Webber didn't necessarily fall too much into that.

That said, this book had a lot of issues, some of which upset me in the course of reading "Breakable."

For one, pacing in this book dragged primarily because of the time jumps that were in this book. There were so many of them and they weren't always sequential to the events of the story or time, some of them were included without much linkage. On one hand, I saw that this was to provide ample background on Lucas/Landon's identity issues and how one of the conflicts of "Easy" bubbled to the surface, but this book felt like a slog in places because it was so cumbersome. It did make it easier to see the time jumps in terms of the POV switches between Landon and Lucas to distinguish the before and after, but not all of it flowed as well as it could've.

For another, my major problem was with how Lucas's character was portrayed as well as the issues contained in this work. Granted, Lucas is very flawed, he has many, MANY issues and I understood that. That's not my complaint. I don't expect him to be a perfect character. I actually appreciated that this narrative, albeit brief, provided a male perspective on the contradictions of gender perceptions, relations, and sexual shaming, including the (all too often) casual attributions of the word "rape." But it was far too brief, which made me question if it really meant anything to the characters within. There were statements made, but all too often, they were either contradicted or dropped before any meaning could be had with them in the context of the text. "Easy", for me, had this same problem - and it often made the assertions made feel empty or otherwise unsupported compared to the love story.

There were also times when they were so blatantly contradicted, by Lucas himself even. I understand envy, but darn, for him to shame another woman (he basically said she wasn't "intelligent") and complain and compare her role to Jackie (Lucas was shaming Kennedy's new relationship, after he broke up with Jackie) was just completely against anything Lucas might've said about women being targets for this kind of criticism.

As for Lucas's character, I did feel for him on the loss of his mother and the past accounts for him grappling with that and struggling to make a future for himself. But I still had problems connecting with him in the "present" with his relationship with Jackie. For one, who the heck would fixate on being jealous upon seeing a condom that doesn't belong to the heroine and speculating about the heroine's relationships with people JUST AFTER SHE WAS NEARLY RAPED?! Seriously, who does that?! And for another, I didn't like how Lucas said "it could've been much worse", and it wasn't made better by the fact that he said he'd never tell Jackie that. For one, that trivializes the hardship she just went through. Pain is not a freaking competition. It's not a matter of trying to compare what could've happened than what did. That feels like it's trivializing Jackie's sexual assault.

And I almost think from certain portrayals/statements that Lucas is more fixated on the role of being the hero -whether it's fighting (between punching the rapists/SAs and leaving them to a bloody pulp) or trying to be the healer of the victims - in the aftermath of witnessing rapes (because he's involved in this kind of incident more than once) than he is about the fact that these women were either nearly raped or raped. That bothers me. The sexual assault/rapes were mostly background noise compared to the romance, and this was a problem in "Easy" as well. It wasn't treated with the maturity I've read in other narratives. Heck, even Buck was still reduced to the "evil rapist" who just kept popping up for the sake of tension in the novel, and it was worse in this novel than "Easy" because there wasn't really the immediacy of his threat (though notably, this was from Lucas's perspective).

I don't know, I feel like there's so much about these first two novels that kept me at a distance from fully connecting with the characters and the matters here - I feel it's far overblown for the significance of the portrayal of these serious matters and it's nowhere near the level of really grappling and presenting emotionally and constructively what it touches upon. I'm interested in reading the third novel in this series ("Sweet") because I have an investment in the characters in that narrative (they made an appearance here and made good impressions on me). I'm hoping it's a better experience than "Easy" or this novel.

Overall score: 1.5/5 stars.

(Review originally posted to my tumblr: http://caffeinated-bibliophile.tumblr.com/post/88417849206/i-recently-finished-easy-by-tammara-webber-and)

I actually really liked this book, which shocked me because A) it’s sort of “New Adult” and “Romance” (not genres I read, normally), and B) I honestly assumed all the hype was misleading.

Easy was an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I passed from one feeling to the next so quickly at times, it was dizzying. One moment I was disgusted and screaming some choice four-letter-words at my Kindle, the next I was nearly sobbing, and then I found myself laughing or “Aww-“ing. This book isn’t likely to leave me quickly, and I’m not sure I’m happy about that.

The characters in this book were so real for me. I hate reading a book and never really believing in the existence of a character, you know? I liked Jacqueline, I loved Lucus/Landon, I absolutely adored Erin and Benji, I loathed Buck and wanted to see him suffer horribly, and Kennedy just irritated me a little.

After the Halloween incident, I groaned a little, thinking this was going to be one of those “white knight saves damsel in distress over and over” kinds of stories. Alright, so in some ways Landon/Lucus does save Jacqueline a few times, but she took steps to be able to do her best to save herself (which I admired), and she kind of saves him, too.

I hated the way Jacqueline felt about her near rape. I know that it seems to be typical for people who are victims of rape or other sexual assaults, but it still pisses me off. I hate that rape victims are made to feel as if they are responsible for the attack, or that they should not report it because they might ruin their attacker’s life. It’s awful. I think this book did a pretty good job of showing that.

I felt so much hatred and rage toward Buck while I was reading this book. I don’t think I’ve ever mumbled so much profanity about a character before. By 20% I was hoping he would die in some slow, agonizing way.

Until Landon/Lucas was caught outside Dr. Heller’s house with Jacqueline, I honestly thought she had fallen for twins. In the very beginning, I thought the tutor was going to be Lucas, but then we were given a different name. That’s when I started thinking they were twins. It kind of surprised me when I found out they really were the same person.

I don't consider myself the romantic type, but stick a mushy love story in my hands and I'll be hooked for hours! I don't think I've tried a New Adult book before, so when I was offered copies of Easy and Breakable, I jumped at the chance. I've heard some great things about Easy and it really did not disappoint.

The subject of rape is pretty strong throughout this story and I thank Tammara so, so much for showing us the devastating effects of both rape and attempted rape, and how to deal with it properly (by kicking the guy's ass into next Sunday and calling the cops). I also loved Jacqueline's friend Erin, just for being her. She finds out her best friend nearly got raped and the first thing she does is sign them up for self defense classes. Every girl needs a friend like her.

Lucas. Lucas. Lucas. The boy is kind of important in these stories and yes, he was sexy all right. And the sexytimes were very, very sexy. *fans self* I fell in love with Lucas and fell in love with their relationship too, they just felt so right together. Which just sounds mushy sorry. They really did just work though and I enjoyed every minute with them.

Although Jacqueline clearly sees Lucas as a protective figure (nothing wrong with that), I enjoyed that throughout the story she got stronger mentally and physically and in the end could pretty much fend for herself. It was something that put me off New Adult, the worry that the girl would be the meek and mild type. I really loved most of the characters in this book!