Page Trotters

from pagetrotter.blogspot.com

Wow. Double wow. This book was amazing. When Lana was 12, twins Rob and Sasha move next door. She immediately clicks with Sasha and they become best friends. Rob on the other hand becomes her tormentor. And I mean serious bullying. So when we meet them 10 years later I was all for hating the little bastard. About halfway through this book I was convinced that Rob was an absolute dickweed and maybe unhinged and then we get to the first "interlude" where we see things from Rob's POV and I gotta tell you, it starts to make sense why he was such a little shit sipper. BUT we still kind of hate him and are a little creeped by his absolute focus on everything that has to do with Lana. And then the story continues to unfurl and we learn more about him and more about Lana and we begin to fall in love with both of them.

Lana has type 1 diabetes and is very shy. She was always the quiet girl who believed she was the ugly duckling (mostly due to Rob), but she's 22 now and she's grown into herself. She still has a long way to go, but she's slowly taking what she wants. She decides to spend the summer before she starts her PhD with her bestie Sasha in London. When she arrives she runs into Rob for the first time in 2 years. She's different and so is he and neither one know how to navigate each other.

Rob is wearing a mask. On the outside he is a frivolous, selfish, self centered dickhole. On the inside he's very artistic, thoughtful, and feels a lot more that anyone would ever guess. He loves his twin sister and is busting his ass to make his dad proud. We get to see glimpses of his past through these interludes and the more we learn about him the more we love/hate him. I don't know how I ended up loving him, but I did and after I was finished I had to shake my head because I was never so wrong about a character before. Or maybe I was right and then against my better judgement....I don't know. What I do know is that my emotions were in line with Lana's so as she struggles with forgiving him so do we. And that is some major writing talent Ms. Cosway!

Rob spends the majority of the book convincing her that he's different now and eventually apologizing because guys, he loves her. Like holy hell does he love her. And Lana has always loved him too. Sometimes you love someone so much that the only way to express it is to hurt the other one and that's what happens here. There is one scene where they are listening to Damien Rice's The Blower's Daughter (which major kuddos because that song literally makes me cry every time I hear it) that you NEED to play in the background while reading the scene. I promise you that if your heart doesn't just melt you can virtually slap me.

I don't even have anything to say about the actual writing because I don't think I can. I think the story enthralled me so much that she could have misspelled every word and I wouldn't have noticed. In addition we have an excellent cast of secondary's that round out the novel and I have to say that I'm a big fan of this author now. I'm hearing great things about her book Painted Faces so I'm probably going to check that one out next. So yes I would recommend this, big time recommend. It's not your usual love story, it's a story you end up loving despite yourself. Trust me on this peeps! Go get it!