“God Jake, I so much more than a lot like you.”“Mikayla, I passed that stage a long, long time ago.”
☆☆3/4
When Mikayla imagined her prom night, she envisioned a fairy-tale evening full of romance. So when betrayal and tragedy come in quick succession, Mikayla is completely destroyed. Suddenly, everything she loved and everyone she relied on are tragically, irrevocably gone.
Jake, a handsome boy she just met, happens to witness her loss. With no one to turn to, Mikayla is forced to depend on this near stranger and his family, and he in turn is determined to take care of her. But Mikayla—thrust into adulthood with no one to guide her—is desperate to contain her grief and hide what she considers to be her weakness. Mikayla and Jake both want more, but despite their growing closeness and intense chemistry, she tries to keep her distance and protect her heart. As he does everything in his power to win her trust, Mikayla must choose between remaining alone and safe or letting love in.
Hmm, ok. I’m still not entirely sure how to actually describe this reading experience, if I’m being honest. This was a book that’s been on my TBR list for maybe a year and I think I added it around the time I finished Kick, Push, which I absolutely LOVED, so I thought “hey, why not try more from this author?” And then there was the fact that I read the synopsis for the second book in this series’ spinoff and I really REALLY wanted to read it but I figured it’s only fair to at least try the original series. The thing about this book is it’s one of those ideas that sound great in theory but isn’t executed in the greatest way and therefore results in multiple problems. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it also wasn’t great; it’s kind of just in the middle for me. I couldn’t even decide between a 2.5 and 3 star rating so I kinda invented 2.75 stars.
THE GOOD- The actual plot and premise of the story is actually a pretty good one. I never really expected this girl, Mikayla, to lose literally everything in her life all in one night and because of that I can understand why the story played out as it did. Sure, it was kind of weird to see how attached and reliant she got on a guy she just met but because of all the heightened emotions I can look past it. And in all fairness, his parents knew her family through their younger daughter so they knew of her and her family, but just not Mikayla personally so again, I can look past that. I liked that there was a relatively long timeline to this book as well and it allowed for the relationship between Jake and Mikayla to develop over that time as well. So while this kind of plot should be weird in other circumstances, because of what happened to Mikayla and her family I can understand it.
- There were some hints of instalove here and there but at the same time it also wasn’t instalove, if that makes sense. It can definitely be viewed as instalove because of how fast things happened on the first night and how quickly these two characters began to rely on the other but there was such a big timeline of 6 months where these feelings were never actually vocalized. Sure, they fooled around here and there but if you really think about it, they never did anything. Feelings were never confessed, kisses were never shared, and the only actual concrete thing was that they “more than liked” each other. So it never really bothered me that much and if we ignore that first night or so, it was pretty good.
- The minor characters were hands down my favourite thing about this book. Dylan and Heidi were great, but I loved Lucy and Cam the most. They seemed like they were always full of life and they were most likely there for comedic relief but I loved them anyways. I might try Lucy and Cam’s story because of how much I enjoyed them and because I hear it’s the best one, but I don’t think the other two books prior to theirs need my attention. But they were all still wonderful characters.
- The worst thing about this book and probably its biggest problem was the writing. I don’t know if it was the copy that I had or if that was how the book was actually written but oh my god, it was really bad. First of all, the run on sentences in this book were endless. I swear, one entire paragraph was just one big ass run on sentence. I could clearly see where the period breaks should be but all of these new ideas kept getting mashed into one sentence and it drove me insane. It reminded me of when I was in grade 6 and doing all of those Language Power exercise where you’d circle all the run on sentences. (Oh dear god…..this book gave me Language Power flashbacks…..yikes.) The second biggest issue for me in regards to the writing is that overall it seemed like a very factual type of writing. What I mean by that is that instead of describing what they were doing or what was happening it sounded more like the characters were stating facts. There was a lot of “I’m doing this. We went there. This is happening tomorrow” and so on. It seemed like less of a narrative and more of an early brainstorming stage to figure out the plot’s timeline. The writing of a book is so important to me and if it’s bad then I can’t enjoy the book as much as I’d like to. It kind of boggles my mind how this is the same author that wrote Kick, Push because that book series is beyond beautiful in my opinion but it also shows how much the author improved from this grammatical disaster.
- Jake sometimes had these “anger spells” where he’d get really jealous and angry at Mikayla for literally a minute but nothing was ever explained about it? It was kind of just brushed over? Like he’d be angry and then BOOM he’s fine and apologizing. She gave it right back to him so I can’t view it as abuse in any way but it was just…..weird.
- The plot of this book sounded so promising but the lack of good writing really ruined what could’ve been a good thing. I guarantee if the writing was better I would’ve enjoyed it more than I did. But honestly, you’re better off reading Kick, Push. It’s so much better, I promise.
Title: More Than This (More Than #1)
Author: Jay McLean
Release Date: July 10, 2013
Pages: 311 (eBook)
Goodreads
Until next time,
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