REVIEW: Forever Mine - Elizabeth Reyes

GENRE: Young Adult
FORM:  eBook
SERIES: The Moreno Brothers

SYNOPSIS:  Sarah has been forced to move to California with her Aunt, and cousin Valerie, while her mom mom goes to jail.  She is leaving behind the only place she has known as a steady home, Flagstaff AZ, as well as her very best friend Sydney.   Upon arriving at her new home and new school, Sarah immediately is taken with the ever popular and mega-hot Angel Moreno, and to her surprise he is taken by her as well.  As things heat up between Sarah and Angel, Sarah is aware that there is one part of her life that Angel is just not going to understand; Sydney, Sarah's best friend.  Bestfriend, who is a guy.

REVIEW:  For a free book on Amazon.com, this is an awesome read. The characters are captivating, and make you want to finish the book in one sitting.  I cannot say, however, I am in love with this book, as I have heard many say recently.  Angel was just a bit too, unapologetically, overbearing for my taste.  Yes, we all love an Edward, the mega jealous and overprotective character, but Angel took that a little too far in my opinion.

I was also a little put off by all the casual sex talk in this book.  I don't care how "current" or "real to life" this might be, even for teenagers today, I just find it sad if it's the truth.  I find it disappointing that we, as adults cannot be better examples of what love and sex should look like - and that throwing ourselves out there for anyone to have a taste of is not just emotionally damaging to girls, but to guys too.  It's a bad example of how anyone should behave.  Sarah, herself was not this bad example, but it seemed as though many of the other characters were.  Love does not equal sex.  Sex does not equal love, but I do hold the strong opinion that the former should not exist without the latter.

In the end, I enjoyed the characters, and the writing was great.  I was really sucked in from the point that Angel found out about Sydney until the very end, which is when most of the entertaining action happened.  The characters were well written, and mostly consistent.  I cannot say I'm overly enthused with picking up the next book in the series, mostly because I have met the characters, and I don't care for them that much.  I understand they likely change in their book - but I don't think I can sit through it.