Title: First Crush, Last Love
Author: Elizabeth McKenna
No. of pages: 305
Genre: Romance
Publication date: August 11th 2017
Date read: September 2nd 2017
5/5 ★
Remember your first crush? How your heart raced and your cheeks flushed whenever you saw him? Jessie Baxter does, and it’s happening again. Ten years ago, despite her best efforts, Lee Archer wanted to be just friends. Now, he wants more, but Jessie’s still recovering from a psycho ex-husband. Can she learn to trust again and make her first crush into her last love?
Elizabeth McKenna’s latest novel will have you remembering the angst of high school, the grief of a failed relationship, and the happiness of true love.
(Goodreads)
Judging on the cover and the title I was a bit sceptical of this novel: I thought it was going to be a super cheesy romance. And it was. But definitely in a good way!
The book is divided into three parts: the high school years, the years where Jessie and Lee have lost contact and the year of the 10-year high school reunion. Because of these three different time periods, you get to know the main characters really well!
Like the blurb says: “[this] novel will have you remembering the angst of high school” and oh my, it did. I was thrown right back into my days of high school and my first crush(es, I had several). Because I was reading this novel as a 22-year-old in a steady relationship, and my high school days are about five years ago, it was kind of hard to identify myself with the lovestruck Jessie. At the start my inner feminist was shouting and screaming inside my mind: “stop waiting around for that loserguy who clearly isn’t going to date you any time soon and isn’t worth your time! Go look for someone who will actually make time for you!” But then I remembered that I have also hoped for a guy to break up with his on-and-off girlfriend so he would actually see me as a potential girlfriend (we ended up dating, but … let’s just say that he looked better from a distance and well … he was a sloppy kisser). But let’s get back to First Crush. After the feminist voice in my head had backed off, because Jessie actually tried to forget Lee, I really enjoyed this romance novel! It had romance, it made me feel nostalgic and it contained a right amount of suspense. Perfect, right?!
If you love romance novels set in the 80’s-90’s this book is absolutely perfect! The pacing is really good: not too fast, but also not too slow. There aren’t actually any steamy scenes (not like the scenes I’m used to in the New Adults/Romance novels I have read lately), but that didn’t bother me at all. Because of this the focus actually lay on the personality (developments) of the characters and on the events happening!
*I received a paper copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*
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