Love Like Crazy Book Review

Love Like Crazy by Megan Squires

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Blurb:

Relationships. Love. Life.

All things that can be considered - and oftentimes are - just a bit crazy.

With an alcoholic father and an absentee mother, seventeen-year-old Eppie Aberdeen has learned firsthand that life's circumstances aren't always sunshine and roses.

So Eppie doesn't expect the fairytale, because reality certain isn't one. She's not waiting on the handsome prince with his white horse to come to her rescue. But even though she's not waiting on it, that doesn't stop nineteen-year-old Lincoln Ross from driving straight into her heart with his teal and white campervan and his too tall stature and perpetually goofy grin.

It's difficult to believe in a happily ever after when a happy now is quite hard to find. But Lincoln gives Eppie hope that despite the odds, a true and unconditional love might actually be out there. A revised fairytale. A new kind of love story.

But then again, that might just be plain crazy.

Review by Brittany:

I downloaded this when it was on a free Kindle promotion on the recommendation of another author whose books I enjoy.

I really enjoyed reading this book. The characters were all a bit quirky, and being in Eppie's head was often an amusing place to be. The way her mind worked was entertaining and kept me turning pages, even more so than the events that were happening throughout the book. The way that Eppie and Lincoln meet (she's rescuing an animal and he valiantly offers to pay) was a bit unconventional, but as the story continued I came to realize that everything about these characters matched that first encounter. They are unconventional, and they develop a romantic relationship on their own time and in their own way.

The reader knows from the very beginning that something is going on with Eppie. Her mother is absent with no explanation, and Eppie reveals that her father is an alcoholic who is often at the bars all night. As the book continues, Eppie slowly reveals through memories what happened with her mother and father and why her family life isn't ideal. Even though some of this is hard to talk about and hard to process, the author reveals it in such a way and surrounds it with scenes that keep the book on a positive level, as opposed to letting the sadness swallow the reader.

The end of the book was a nice wrap-up. Eppie and Lincoln have the same issues they've always had, but they've come to realize that the past made them who they are now, and they love each other. I always like endings that don't tie everything up neatly but still leave me feeling like the story is complete, and this author nailed that feeling.

Overall, this was an excellent book. I think this author did a good job of telling her story and developing her characters. I would reread this book, and I will definitely look for more by this author.

Notable quotes:

It didn't necessarily matter what form your impulses took, they were all felt the same.

"Not all breaks are clean. Sometimes we crumble, sometimes we erode. And those erosions, Eppie - the ones that chip away at our hopes and our dreams and our plans for our futures - those are often a lifetime in the making. It's those we must watch out for, my dear."

"I'm sorry that your experiences did that to you. Made you lose any hope that maybe we actually are meant to be happy in this life."

"You don't ever fall in love with the current version of someone, because I hate to burst your pretty little bubble, but that doesn't exist. We're the summation of our histories..."

We all harbored varying degrees of insanity within us, I figured. That was just the curse of being human.