I not really the target audience for this New Adult book but I enjoyed it. It was angsty (a NA prerequisite) without being OTT. Maybe angsty lite. It's really amazing how using the correct vocabulary can set the tone for a book. These characters really felt their age, college kids. It was nice to read about a heroine who was cute but not drop dead gorgeous and a nice hipster type real smart guy who was not the greatest at figuring out girls. The whole story just seemed pretty real to me. Sort of the story of a relationship which might happen in the real world no rock stars or prize fighters or running from the mafia. ;-) ( )

I was provided with a copy of this book to read and give my honest review. This book is the fourth installment in the True Believers series. Having read the others I was looking forward to getting my hands on this one. The series is set around the ‘opposites attract’ theme and this one continues on in that vein.

Kylie has just come out of a bad breakup and feels her world is falling a part. Her grades are down, she has lost her love to another girl and she is struggling with her relationships. She engages a tutor to help her at least get her grades up and sort out that side of her life. Enter Jonathan, geek, nice guy and terribly cute. Yep you know where this is going. OK so, Jonathan has his life all worked out but hasn’t counted on Kylie or their unplanned pregnancy. The rest of the story is for you to read and discover for yourself.

Well written, surprise ending and another hit from Erin McCarthy. Well worth the read. ( )

Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales

Quick & Dirty: Emotional story that delivered a great message. With amazing characters, steamy romance, and beautiful writing, this is sure to be a hit with all new adult contemporary romance fans!

Opening Sentence: I hated living alone.

The Review:

Kylie has never been categorized as a smart girl. She is pretty, funny, and sweet, so pretty much everyone loves her. So you would think that her life is perfect, but it is actually quite the opposite of perfect at the moment. Her longtime boyfriend recently cheated on her with one of her best friends and now she is failing chemistry. Getting cheated on was a big blow to her confidence, and it has pretty much affected everything else in her life as well. The one highlight of her life is hooking up with her hot new chemistry tutor. It was suppose to only be a one night thing, but Kylie ends up getting pregnant. When it rains it pours, and Kylie’s life is one big rainstorm.

Jonathan is a grad student and chemistry is his life. School has always come easy to him, but he has never been very good at the whole social scene. Sure he dates, but he tends to date people more because they have a lot in common versus being physically attracted to them. When he meets Kylie he can’t help but notice that she is totally gorgeous and quite honestly out of his league. But to his surprise they actually have pretty amazing chemistry which leads to really amazing sex. Jonathan figured it was a one-time thing, but when he finds out Kylie is pregnant he is prepared to be the best father he can be. He wants to be there for Kylie in any way she needs him, even if it is just as a friend, but secretly he can’t help but want it to be more.

The first thing I noticed about Kylie is her amazing outlook on life. She is a bubbly person and she is always trying to lift others. For obvious reasons she has been pretty down lately and her self confidence took a pretty big hit. It really felt like Kylie was on a journey of self discovery. In a very short period of time she goes through a lot of emotional situations. Watching her learn to cope with everything was really interesting and helped me to develop a deep connection with her character. I haven’t personally been through any of the things she experienced, but I could still relate to her very well. I loved watching her grow and learn that she needs to be true to herself no matter what others think of her. In many ways she is an inspiring character that was easy to love.

Jonathan was totally adorable. I love that he was a cute nerd and in many ways he wasn’t at all Kylie’s type. He is smart, driven, and has his life pretty put together. But at the same time he is the nicest guy that you can’t help but love. For the most part he is very mature about everything that happens to him and I really respected that. The way he treats Kylie is so sweet and as a couple they have some seriously hot chemistry between them. In many ways they are total opposites, but they also complement each other really well. From the first moment I met Jonathan I instantly fell for him and throughout the story my fondness for him just kept growing.

Shatter is a beautifully written story that delivers a great message about being true to yourself. I think the best thing about it was how much I loved the characters. They were so well rounded and easy to relate to. The romance was very steamy but also very sweet. This story is an emotional roller coaster ride and has some slightly clique moments, but overall, it is a really great read. This is by far my favorite book in the series and I am really excited to read more from McCarthy. Each book can easily be read as a standalone, so personally I would suggest you just start with this one. If you are a new adult romance fan this is a book you should pick up.

Notable Scene:

It was a delicious kiss, the kind that started slow and tentative then grew deeper and deeper until I needed to pull back and snag a breath. For a heartbeat, I stared at him, my mouth hovering over his, the light reflecting off his glasses so I couldn’t read what was in his eyes, but he didn’t give me enough time to speak or think any further. He put his hand on the back of my head and erased the space between us, and for some reason it mattered to me that he didn’t pull me to him, he came to me. It wasn’t a lazy kiss, a hey, baby, give daddy some sugar, kind of lame, puckered-lip sloppiness.

This was like when you went tubing on the river and you drifted along, eyes closed, face turned up toward the sun, relaxed, warm and cold at the same time, aware of every sensation, fingers trailing behind in the murky water. Like each moment mattered, time caught in a mental camera roll, captured in sparkling perfection, time slow and easy, yet disappearing faster than you could have ever imagined. Jonathon kissed like that, his tongue teasing the inside of my mouth, his fingers massaging the back of my head, his legs and arms forming a warm circle around me.

It was like he had nowhere to be and nothing to do except this, and he didn’t grind or grab or push my hand onto his junk. It was like he could kiss me indefinitely, and I could hear my breathing grow ragged, could feel my body growing hot, heavy, eager. When he briefly pulled back to study me, smiling a little, I saw that I had fogged up his glasses. I gave a soft laugh.

FTC Advisory: Intermix/Berkley/Penguin provided me with a copy of Shatter. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review. ( )

Originally published on Tales to Tide You Over

This is the third book in the True Believer series that I’ve read, and like the others, it hits on the very real problems faced by college-age people (whether they’re in college or not), at least by sexually active ones.

I thought I understood the title in the beginning of the book with Kylie still struggling to get her head around the fact that her best friend had a drunken hook-up with her boyfriend, and worse, her boyfriend spent the summer trying to make it happen again while she’d been at home. We saw Robin’s side of the story in Believe, but Kylie now has the POV. I should have known it wouldn’t be so simple. Erin McCarthy wasn’t done with Kylie just yet.

This book reads like the creation of a stained-glass mosaic. It starts with Kylie, who is pretty and sweet, but like the sheets of colored glass, she’s been dropped and broken into tiny pieces. Then she gathers those pieces up, not once, but several times, throughout the story to form a whole new picture as life kicks her in the teeth.

Kylie’s story was the one I’d been looking forward to the least, to be honest. I liked her well enough. She was a decent friend, and she’s gone through some rough times. But I didn’t identify at all with her focus on how she looked and always being cheerful. These books are written in shared first person, and I didn’t think I wanted to spend that much time in her head.

Boy was I wrong. Sure, we’re not focused on the same things in many ways, and I have more in common with Jonathan, the leading man, but McCarthy pulls it off, carrying me along until I discovered many common points with Kylie.

Since the cover blurb already gives away some of it, I’ll tell you this book deals with an accidental pregnancy and its aftermath. The book is highly sexual and explicit, like the other titles, but each instance is so blended into the story and crucial to the real life changes they’re facing, that it doesn’t stick out. Like the other books, I forget how specific that aspect is because of how well it works. I mean, hard to have an accidental pregnancy without sex, but when Kylie is dealing with serious self-esteem issues for the first time in her life, sex gets all tangled up in that.

I can’t forget to introduce Jonathan properly. He’s a chemistry graduate student who is studying with his father just because his tuition is covered, his parents being estranged. The situation is more complicated than that, much more as you discover later, but better you learn the details while reading.

What makes Jonathan so fun is the way McCarthy manages to blend in some chemistry (he’s tutoring her because on top of everything she’s flunking chemistry) and chemistry jokes. Don’t worry. The tutoring is all from her perspective so you don’t have to understand it to enjoy the book, but it makes him real, and it makes Kylie’s worries about how he sees her very real too.

They act as mirrors for each other, but of the fun house type. Kylie thinks all he sees is a dumb blond while Jonathan feels a little like the high school nerd who got one, and only one, miracle date with the head cheerleader. It’s much more complicated than that, but the underlying issues are there, and based almost entirely on their self-images and social expectations.

I feel like I could keep going, talking about how different aspects of this story worked and had an impact on me, but better you read Shatter yourself. It’s about inner strength and inner worth, deals with very real issues that folks starting out as adults face, and gives you characters you can sympathize with in the rough times (and trust me there are rough times) while you can enjoy when life gives them a moment of happiness.

P.S. I received this title from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review. ( )

Our Review, by LITERAL ADDICTION's Vivacious Valkyrie - Marta:
*Copy gifted in exchange for an honest review

Wow! This is the fourth instalment of the True Believers series by this popular author and I think she has certainly surpassed all my expectations with this book. This series about new adults just keeps getting better with each book and it's lovely the way the friends each find happiness even if at first it looks as if all is hopeless. From pathos to passion, despair to hope, this book brings a wealth of emotions and at times it's startling just how much feeling the author imbues into her words . This story has everything you want in a romance but so much more as it's truly a coming of age story. Ms McCarthy has done a fabulous job and it would be an insane reader who did not pick up this book.

Kylie has always met life head on and has never really struggled but finding out her boyfriend cheated on her with one of her closest friends has quite simply ripped her apart. Kylie doesn't believe that she could feel any worse and when this story starts she is very much a victim. Kylie is by nature happy go lucky, confident and social but the recent events in her life have left her broken and it feels as if everything is just slipping away. Needing to get her grades back up she arranges to meet with a tutor but Jonathan is such an unexpected find. First off he's probably the cutest geek Kylie has ever seen and then there is the fact that he seems like a genuinely nice guy! They just seem to click on so many levels and one thing leads to another and what do you know Kylie has one night of truly amazing sex with Jonathan but realises that she probably won't ever see him again. Wrong!

Jonathan has his life all mapped out and he's more than just a student he's a really bright chemistry one with an amazing future ahead of him. Oh he realises that he's not exactly what every woman fantasises about but his one night of passion with the bubbly Kylie has left him questioning things. When Kylie reappears some weeks later and tells him that she's having his baby the bottom simply falls out of his world! To say he is astounded is too little, too simplistic,what Jonathan feels is a need so deep to be there for Kylie and their child that it's something he feels soul deep. Jonathan's own father was never interested in him but Jonathan is determined to be a better man . Luckily Kylie is a warm hearted woman who wants to give their child as much love and stability as Jonathan does and they try to work together at being the best parents they can possibly be.

Life is full of unexpected things and an unplanned baby is probably the biggest shock that anyone can face. Kylie might be young but she's full of maternal instincts but her attraction to Jonathan worries her. Can they ever make a go of things really? If they try will it end up with them hating each other? Jonathan seems to want Kylie but she is unsure if it's just his guilt that plagues him. He is without doubt a very mature and sensitive guy but pregnancy can bring many challenges and this young couple are about to discover just how hard life can really get!

I loved this story and even though it's probably not aimed at someone of my age a great story will always have me hooked. At the beginning we see Kylie as a victim but as we reach the conclusion her growth as a woman is a beautiful thing to read. Kylie was always an optimistic live wire throughout this series and indeed at times has seemed quite shallow but she has inner depths that truly shine and it's great to see her feelings of self worth grow. This book is titled Shatter but could equally be called Strength! Kylie is so very strong and as a woman I just want to hug her! The sexy ( and very giving!) Jonathan is just too perfect and at times I wasn't quite convinced but he won me over and his devotion to Kylie and their Celldividing Zygote was heartwarming! I mean come on ,how many guys google the ins and outs of pregnancy from blood production to lactating breasts and everything in between! Jonathan really reads as if he is a scientist with a thirst for knowledge and I applaud the author for all the detail that has gone into his character..

This story could have gone in so many different directions but I have to admit that the end was a little surprising. If you want to read about love and all the complexities associated with it then this book will blow your mind. I adored this couple and as I read recently that the author intended four books in this series I am a little sad to say goodbye to all these characters but for me Ms McCarthy has definately saved the best for last! ( )