**Spoilers Ahead, Read On With Caution**
I’d been exited about reading this book for a while as I’d enjoyed other books by his author. A lot attracted me to it, being as the cover is über pretty, and the blurb is just enough angsty-teen without it being OTT.
Catherine and Elliott were close friends for a summer when they were fifteen, Elliott was gangly, all braces and camera in hand, and staying at his Aunt Leigh’s for the summers, visiting from Yukon. Elliott’s mum appears demands he come back immediately, and drags him away without saying goodbye to Catherine first. He disappears from her. On the worst day she’s experienced in her life so far, and she’s left utterly alone. Left to help her mum turn their big, grotty house (the Juniper) into the B&B her Dad never wanted it Ito be, Catherine doesn’t get to be a normal teenager.
Skip to two years later and Elliott is finally back, after promising years ago that he’d return, just no one thought it’d be two years and their senior year. No one thought he’d come back with a hot bod and win the quarterback spot on the football team either. But hey, he did.
Catherine is devastated by his return as it brings back all the abandonment and blah blah blah. OR SO I THOUGHT. Elliott is actually a gem and Catherine just needs to let him explain!
I had a couple issues with this book as I just felt like I couldn’t always get my finger on the plot. Like a character was insane but not portrayed that way all the time. Catherine’s Mama confused me to no end, I was constantly trying to figure out if she was mentally ill (likely) or just off-her-rocker nuts.
Then there’s the fact that because the big ol’ house is a B&B there’s their regular guests. The issue I had with these is that they weren’t frequent enough that I really remembered them properly. Willow would come in, or Tess and I wouldn’t know which was which because they didn’t have enough previous dialogue, or even strong enough personality traits for me to distinguish comfortably, or visible descriptors. I was always second guessing myself a bit with them, but maybe that was the point? As a character, Catherine is quite a recluse. She’s quiet, has no friends, bullied at school for being weird, and just doesn’t act like a normal eighteen year old. So maybe Jamie McGuire wanted the exterior characters to sort of blend and mesh.
The book also has a weird vibe where all the male characters had some sort of anger or aggressive underlining, not sure I was a fan. Elliott was the only character I properly liked, and even he seemed forced at times, and too caring for a real teenager, but more towards the end of the book does it start to make proper sense that he’s just so severely worried about Catherine. Which is understandable when the plot reveals itself; and then the book quickly becomes quite bloody brilliant.
It took me four days to read this book, which is quite a change for me as I’m notoriously fast at reading, but this one just made me need to put it down and think. And I mean really think. I really had to (at times) force myself to keep with it because I knew it would be worth it in the end. That all the weird unexplainable, wishy-washy characters would come to head; and boy did they.
Well thought out is feeling like an understatement the more I think on it. The Juniper has secrets, and Catherine can’t keep them forever. Not with Elliott so willing and opening loving her.
BECAUSE BOOKS 