Come Back To Me by Coleen Patrick
Source: Netgalley
ISBN: 9780989095105
Release Date: March 6, 2013
Pages: 197
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Whitney Denison can’t wait to start over.
She thought she had everything under control, that her future would always include her best friend Katie… Until everything changed.
Now her life in Bloom is one big morning after hangover, filled with regret, grief, and tiny pinpricks of reminders that she was once happy. A happy she ruined. A happy she can’t fix.
So, she is counting down the days until she leaves home for Colson University, cramming her summer with busywork she didn’t finish her senior year, and taking on new hobbies that involve glue and glitter, and dodging anyone who reminds her of her old life.
When she runs into the stranger who drove her home on graduation night, after she’d passed out next to a ditch, she feels herself sinking again. The key to surviving the summer in Bloom is unraveling whatever good memories she can from that night.
But in searching for answers, she’ll have to ask for help and that means turning to Evan, the stranger, and Kyle, Katie’s ex-boyfriend. Suddenly, life flips again, and Whitney finds herself on not only the precipice of happy but love, too, causing her to question whether she can trust her feelings, or if she is falling into her old patterns of extremes.
As she uncovers the truth about her memories, Whitney sees that life isn’t all or nothing, and that happy isn’t something to wait for, that instead, happy might just be a choice.
This is the first book I really almost DNF. I have wanted to do that for other books in the past, BUT I do not DNF books no matter how bad they are. It’s just not in me. In this case I was ready to give up fifty pages in.
I found the prologue to be interesting. Young girl so drunk she is passed out in a ditch to be rescued by some stranger. She obviously needs help right? But that’s not what this novel is about. Nope. You only get a few pages of her in rehab and then she is picked up by her mother. If we had more time with Whitney’s recovery maybe I would have connected a bit more with her, but I didn’t. Whitney for such a troubled young girl seemed to bounce back from rehab quite well. She realized she had a problem and vows to move on with her life, which is great. Awesome for Whitney to realize she has a drinking problem and commit to recovery, but you don’t really get a feel of her recovery. It almost seemed too easy.
One problem I had with the book was the parents and Whitney’s relationship. For the first half of the novel Whitney mostly whined about how her Dad cheats on her Mom and her Mom just accepts it. She rebelled and ended up an alcoholic at the age of eighteen. Her parents did not acknowledge her problem besides dumping her in rehab the day after the party. This family has some real issues they need to work through, but of course they don’t.
But, the biggest problem I had with this book is that it just bored me. I was constantly wondering when something would happen. The first half was Whitney’s monotonous life after rehab. Nothing happens, and I mean nothing besides her going to the mall to pick up some craft supplies. Then the romance happens very quickly. She runs into Evan and next thing you know she’s in love. There was no flow to the storyline. The writing seems clunky at times and was constantly switching from present to past. The past was a bit interesting as Whitney recently lost her ex-best friend (Katie) and is still dealing with unresolved issues with Katie. But again, I was mostly bored with the story.
