"For the Love of Ash"

Taylor Lavati, the author of "For the Love of Ash", asked me to read her book before it comes out in just a few days on the 9th. I was so excited for the opportunity and I have completely fallen in love with her characters. Maggie, the main girl, has to suddenly become an adult when her parents die and she gets custody of her nine-year old little brother. She goes from immature party girl, to 23-year old mom, and she is actually really good at it. While trying to balance parenting, work, and college, fate decides to throw her a curveball by the name of Luke. Try as she might to avoid him, she can't because he sits behind her in one of her classes and also happens to be her little brothers gym teacher. He is a ridiculously cute and caring character and is perfect in a way that only fictional characters can be.

Luke decides that he needs to get to know Maggie better. There is something about her that he just can't shake. After a lot of resistance on her part, and endless persistence on his, they finally decide to give a relationship between them a try. They go through trials together as Maggie is still figuring out this whole 'Mom' thing and Luke has to deal with his abusive family situation, but they strengthen each other and Luke almost always brightens the day by doing something cute and romantic. Maggie really grows throughout this book, she starts out as a selfish carefree young adult, but when put in a difficult situation she rises to the occasion and becomes the person that she needs to be. She kind of turned into my hero.

This book spoke to me in a personal way because I have a nine-year old little sister and I was able to picture myself in Maggie's situation. It would be so hard, opening up your life to someone new when you know how much it would affect the little person you are caring for...well, I can understand why she was so hesitant. The writing was fantastic, but it did contain quite a bit of language, and a couple of detailed sex scenes. I tried to skip over those. If you are looking for clean books, then this is probably not for you. I know it's not a book that I would want my daughter reading. However, if it sounds like something you would enjoy then don't hesitate to pick a copy of this up as soon as it comes out, and as always, let me know what you think!