Waiting on Wednesday (50): Love Story by Jennifer Echols

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights an upcoming release that I'm eagerly awaiting. This week I can't wait for Love Story by Jennifer Echols.


I have read every book by Jennifer Echols and have not been disappointed yet, so needless to say I'm very excited to read Love Story! The cover is adorable and will fit in nicely next to my other Echols books. I can't wait until it comes out this summer on July 19, 2011. The cover and summary below are from Goodreads:

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW. Erin Blackwell is headed to college in New York City to study creative writing and earn a living as a romance novelist. Her grandmother has other plans: she approves of the college, but she wants Erin to major in business and then come back home to Kentucky to run the family’s famous racehorse farm. There is no way Erin will agree. Studying in New York and writing her way into a career is her escape from the farm and the family tragedy that happened there. So Erin’s grandmother decides Erin really will live life as a starving artist. She takes Erin’s future job running the farm, her inheritance, even her college tuition, and gives them all to Hunter Allen.

Hunter has lived on the farm for years. He’s Erin’s age, he’s the stable boy, and he’s the romantic dream of every girl in her high school. But he was involved in the family tragedy. Erin has always given him a wide berth. And he’s a slick opportunist. She’s furious that he fooled her grandmother into giving him Erin’s birthright and sending him to Erin’s college.

At least she’s free of him in her creative writing class. So she pens a story that has haunted her lately, in which the horse farm heiress at the very first Kentucky Derby starts a forbidden affair with the lowly stable boy. Unfortunately for her, the day she’s sharing this story with her New York classmates, Hunter walks in. He’s switching to her class. And after reading about himself in Erin’s story, he writes his own sexy assignments that lure Erin into dangerous fantasies about what could have been between them, and what might be.

Endless Summer: The Boys Next Door; Endless Summer Review

Title: Endless Summer: The Boys Next Door; 
Endless Summer

Author: Jennifer Echols

Number of Pages: 624
Genre: Romantic Comedy
 Publisher: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: May 25, 2010

My Edition: Signed Paperback

Reading Level: Young Adult

Received From: Jennifer Echols
Author's Website: jenniferechols.com 

Summary from Amazon:
Two irresistible boys. One unforgettable summer.

Lori can’t wait for her summer at the lake. She loves wakeboarding and hanging with her friends--including the two hotties next door. With the Vader brothers, she's always been just one of the guys. Now that she’s turning sixteen, she wants to be seen as one of the girls, especially in the eyes of Sean, the older brother. But that’s not going to happen--not if the younger brother, Adam, can help it.

Lori plans to make Sean jealous by spending time with Adam. Adam has plans of his own for Lori. As the air heats up, so does this love triangle. Will Lori’s romantic summer melt into one hot mess? 

Review: 
The Boys Next Door and Endless Summer were the perfect light summer, beachy reads, so I speed through them very quickly. I started and read about 20 pages when I had a couple free minutes to read, but after that I laid down and didn't stop reading until five hours later when I'd finished reading the entire two books. I don't know if I was just in a really good reading mood or if the books were just that amazing, either way they were highly enjoyable, fun reads! The main character Lori and the Vader boys were highly entertaining and very funny but could be very annoying at times because of their love triangle plus many dumb misunderstandings. Thank goodness the second book was already there in my hands after I finished the first, so I didn't even have to stop to get the other book or have to wait at all for it. 

The Boys Next Door was for sure my favorite of the two because I loved the chase between Lori and the boys in their multiple fake, jealous "relationships", how sweet Adam was, and how it ended. I definitely liked Endless Summer also but just not as much as the first though. The plot of the first book was a lot more fun and charming than the second though because I didn't like that Lori and Adam couldn't be together in Endless Summer causing lots of tension which wasn't the funniest to read about. I really liked that in the second book how every other chapter switched by going back and forth between Lori and Adam's perspectives. At first though, I didn't realize it was Adam's point-of-view, so I was pretty confused until I realized the POV switch. It was pretty interesting knowing Adam's thoughts for a change instead of just a  girl's, but of course he starts be a tad jealous and not trusting when Lori and him are forbidden from seeing each other making his thoughts a little irritating.

Overall, I loved the romance and comedy elements in the books and loved the wonderful characters even more! I was just totally engrossed in their story the entire time and felt like I was really in the book with them experiencing it all as it happened. I recommend these books to any girl or even guy who is in the mood for a fun, summer read with lots of romance, fun, love, and wakeboarding! So far I have really enjoyed every book I've read by Jennifer Echols, so I can't wait to read more books by her! I just purchased The Ex Games by Echols for my Kindle, so I just have to wait for my Kindle to arrive to read it...

Rating:

Forget You Review

Title: Forget You

Author: Jennifer Echols
Pages: 293

Publisher: MTV

Publication Date: July 20, 2010

My Edition: Signed Galley

Reading Level: YA, Ages 14+

Received from: Jennifer Echols for review

Summary from Goodreads:

WHY CAN’T YOU CHOOSE WHAT YOU FORGET . . .  AND WHAT YOU REMEMBER?

There’s a lot Zoey would like to forget. Like how her father has knocked up his twenty-four- year old girlfriend. Like Zoey’s fear that the whole town will find out about her mom’s nervous breakdown. Like darkly handsome bad boy Doug taunting her at school. Feeling like her life is about to become a complete mess, Zoey fights back the only way she knows how, using her famous attention to detail to make sure she’s the perfect daughter, the perfect student, and the perfect girlfriend to ultra-popular football player Brandon.

But then Zoey is in a car crash, and the next day there’s one thing she can’t remember at all—the entire night before. Did she go parking with Brandon, like she planned? And if so, why does it seem like Brandon is avoiding her? And why is Doug—of all people— suddenly acting as if something significant happened between the two of them? Zoey dimly remembers Doug pulling her from the wreck, but he keeps referring to what happened that night as if it was more, and it terrifies Zoey to admit how much is a blank to her. 

Controlled, meticulous Zoey is quickly losing her grip on the all-important details of her life—a life that seems strangely empty of Brandon, and strangely full of Doug. 

Review:

Forget You told a sweet, romantic story involving many themes of family problems, love and loss, friendship, and trust. It was hard to put down and so good I read it in less than a day. The writing is for mature readers because of a few steamy moments that were actually pretty fun to read plus some swearing and alcohol references. Jennifer Echols definitely knows how to tell such a great, meaningful story that you will not want to put down til you're finished.

The main character Zoey is a swimmer and lifeguard like me, so it was very easy to connect with her character. At times though, Zoey did get on my nerves because she wouldn't get closer to Doug because she thinks her and Brandon are dating. She uses that excuse so often, it got very old to hear. Doug was my favorite character and probably one of the best male characters I've read in a long time. He seemed distant and mean at first but later turns out to be very sweet and sensitive. If I were him, I wouldn't have put up the things Zoey kept doing to him, but in the end it all worked out. Besides some annoyances from Zoey, I loved Zoey and Doug together, and their relationship is what kept me wanting to read just so I could find out what would happen between them. I really couldn't believe some of the sad and dramatic events that occurred in Zoey's life but was very happy with the ending. 

Forget You is the first book I've read by Echols, so I'm very exciting to read many more of her novels in the future! I highly recommend reading especially if you have never read any of her books before. Also, the cover is very cute, and its the perfect cover for such an amazingly, sweet story.

Rating: