Review: Fall Guy

Title:  Fall Guy
Series:  Youngblood #1
Author:  Liz Reinhardt
Published:  September 20, 2012 by the author
Source:  Bought

Evan Lennox is going nowhere fast. She's living with her grandparents after her parents bailed on her, she got kicked out of her posh private school, her ex-boyfriend proved to be the biggest sleaze imaginable, her former best friend is a back-stabber, and her current best friend is stuck in backwoods NJ. To top it all off, one teeny, tiny fire she lit to burn some memories of her ex goes a little out of control and winds up igniting a good piece of a very powerful family's pecan orchard.

Evan lands her pampered behind in court and gets sentenced to community service. Which she knows she deserves. But the hard labor and humiliation may be her undoing.

Until she meets Winchester Youngblood on the site.

Everything about him is tricky, confusing, not at all what it seems, and so sexy, Evan can't resist pulling closer. But every step she takes to get to know him gives her more of a reason to back up and put him as far out of life as she possibly can. Because Winch is one hundred percent complicated, and Evan isn't looking for that. At all. She needs to meet a nice, responsible guy, not share searing kisses with the charming hustler she met after they both got sentenced in court.

But Winch is so much more than what he seems, and Evan finds out that she's falling hard for the guy everyone underestimates and writes off. And Winch realizes that Evan is the one person who's ever challenged him to ask for more out of his life, and her courage inspires him to try to be the person she sees when she looks at him. With every single odd stacked against them, Evan and Winch need to find out whether they have what it takes to fall for each other.

My Review:   Fall Guy was a book that I expected to be a lot more about the growing of the characters as individuals rather than the growing of the two main character's relationship.  I knew that Evan and Winch's relationship would play a huge part (hello, it's a NA romance), but from the blurb, I got the impression we would see more personal growth and change in Evan's life because of all the crap she's been through but I felt like we didn't.  Despite my expectations being let down from that, I still really enjoyed this novel.  

Evan was a character that I actually didn't immediately like.  In the very first chapter she fell a little flat for me.  However, that quickly change once we learned more about her.  She was strong, stubborn, and held tightly onto her ideas of right and wrong which I admired.  She wasn't afraid of standing up to people she loved if she knew they were doing things they should be.  These qualities definitely redeemed her in my eyes.  I liked Winch from the moment we met him.  He was charming and charismatic and I just loved his demeanor when we saw him in court.  His devotion and loyalty to his family and friends was strong to a fault.  I got so frustrated at him because he was so willing to throw himself in front of a bullet to save his family.  Still, he was an extremely likable guy and I loved seeing the way he was with Evan.  

The story was slow at parts but it was easy to get through.  There was a lot of repetitive scenes and ideas brought up and it got a little annoying after a while but I was curious as to how things would happen in the end so I was unwilling to put it down.  I also expected a lot more problems involving the law and the community service they were assigned but it really only served as a way for Winch and Evan to meet.  I wasn't terrible disappointed with that, though. 

Fall Guy was a novel that was different than I had expected but still an enjoyable read that I had fun getting drawn into.  The characters were strong and the plot, while slightly repetitive, kept me engaged the entire time. 

Three Cards