Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Review: Carry Me Home by Lia Riley

Carry Me Home by Lia Riley 
Series: Off the Map 3.1
Published: May 5, 2015
Publisher: Grand Central/Forever
Length: Novella
Genre: Contemporary New Adult
Acquired this book: Via NetGalley in exchange for honest consideration
Warning: May contain spoilers
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{My review of Upside Down || My review of Sideswiped ||My review of  Inside Out}

Love doesn’t have to be perfect to be true…

Years ago, Tanner Green loved Sunny Letman. She was meant to be his first kiss, first love, first everything. Then their world spun upside-down and out of control.

Free-spirited Sunny doesn’t do commitment. Sure, guys are great for a night or a week, but she always leaves first. That is, until professional skateboarder and town golden boy, Tanner Green, unexpectedly walks back into her life.

Despite their broken history, a fragile and undeniably electric connection still holds them together. Now Tanner has to convince Sunny that even though love isn’t always perfect, it’s worth sticking around for. . .


And the award for best opening line of a book goes to...Lia Riley! Seriously. “Shoot me, I like sex. If I wait for true love before getting busy, I’ll be covered in cobwebs, and that’s bad news for someone with arachnophobia.” With an opening line like that, is it any wonder I love Lia’s books so much? There’s just something about her stories, her characters, and her writing style that sucks you in.

Upside Down, Sideswiped, and Inside Out were three of my favourite books of 2014, and put Lia near the top of my auto-read list. Her unique stories, relatable characters, honest writing, and hella sexy scenes make her books compulsively readable, and Carry Me Home was no different.

From the little bit we got to know about Sunny and Tanner in Talia and Bran’s books, I was curious what their story would be like. I had a certain mental image of each of them in mind, and in many ways it was smashed to pieces. Sunny and Tanner were complex characters, and for a novella, we got to know a lot about them, their histories (separately and together), and what drives them. They both had issues and carried a lot of emotional scars from things that happened to them in the past. They seemed like they shouldn’t work together, but they did. I absolutely loved them together. For such a short book, these two made me run the gamut of emotions from happy to heartbroken to angry to frustrated and everything in between. They helped each other in so many ways, and each became better people. Considering the length of the story, I’d say it was no small feat to have such intense, believable character growth.  

Like with Ms Riley’s other books, the sexytime scenes in Carry Me Home were off the charts hot. I joked to a friend that I was tempted to rig up my Kindle in a Ziplock bag and just take it into a freezing cold shower. It was THAT hot. And yet the sexytimes were also really beautiful and meaningful and added to the story. I had trouble describing it in my reviews of Lia’s other books, but I love that she doesn’t shy away from sexual stuff, and that it’s completely honest and open and believable. You don’t read a lot of stories like that, and it makes me love her books even more. I also really loved the sex positive messages in the book; Sunny was completely unashamed of her sexuality, and it was so nice to see a guy who lacked somewhat in experience and wasn’t a total player. It was a refreshing change from all the books out there with the timid, inexperienced girl and the sex god guy.

Carry Me Home was a beautiful story. I could have continued reading about Sunny and Tanner forever. I didn’t want their story to end and was sad to say goodbye to them, even though my heart was full.


~Favourite Quotes from Carry Me Home~

Sunny: “Despite my name and outwardly bright demeanor, I know I’m not good enough for any golden boy. I attract darkness.” ~ 18%

Tanner: “I’ve never known anyone more alive than Sunny Letman. If life’s a crazy journey, she’s in the driver’s seat, top down, wind in her hair, making you wonder what it would be like to go along for the ride.” ~ 22%



   
Have you read Carry Me Home or any of the other books in the Off the Map series? What did you think? If you haven't read them, do you plan to? Do you like reading novellas that are part of series? Let's talk here or on Twitter!
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2 comments:

  1. That is a great opening line! I love the first sentences of books. You can tell so much from them.

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  2. I already really like this novella, and I haven't even read anything by Lia yet. :D That opening line is awesome. I LOVE it. It gives me the impression that the rest of the book will be as great. And ooh! A guy who isn't a total player? Sign me up. That's going to be so nice to read.

    ReplyDelete

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