22457984Title: Lex and Lu

Author: J. Santiago

Publisher: River Grove Books

Publication Date: June 2014

Genre: Adult Fiction/Contemporary Romance

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

 

 

Synopsis can be found here.
I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

 

Review:

Lex is a superstar, one of the best soccer players in the world today. But Lu knew him when he was just a little boy, her next door neighbor, her first love.

Eight years have passed since the day they broke up and Lex went to England to play soccer professionally. But Lu has a secret, one that she needs to finally tell. And there’s no telling what will happen when it’s revealed.

The synopsis intrigued me so that I requested to read it. The cover is pretty, vague filled with intention and maybe a little bit sorrowful. Lu and Lex seem like soulmates, and worst enemies. I was interested.

Lu is supposed to be super genius, so smart that she is teased relentlessly by her family and friends. She uses “big” words that her friends tell her to stop using those SAT words on them. I have to admit, I was slightly annoyed by these comments. The words she was using weren’t out of normal vanacular words. And the reader is told more than shown how smart she is. Never did we see her talk about her dissertation, about what she was learning or her research, how she studied or her views on anything intellectual. But I digress.

She is also trying to make up for a past mistake. I found Lu to be a bit of a wet noodle. She’s pushed around a fair bit in the book between flashbacks of when she was a teenager in love to current times. She’s sad all the time, nervous, and constantly thinks she deserves what she gets. I feel like there is a real girl in there somewhere, a girl that Lex did fall for. But I never met her. There wasn’t enough good times, laughter, fun for her to be more than just a sad girl.

Lex is a little bit more colorful. I like how charming he is but also how he is so detached. And angry. I really appreciated the way he couldn’t deal with his anger and how he lashed out. That said while he was more interesting than Lu, there wasn’t a whole lot of character development for the first half of the book for him. He felt more cookie cutter-ish, until the secret is revealed.

I liked Willa and Pete, the siblings. They were fun and less angsty and added much needed lightness and clarity to the characters. The parents were involved in the book, but  the three remaining parents reminded me more like old Greek gods and goddesses with their detached and harsh judgement of their children.

Overall, the story was interesting and I liked the tension. There was some serious chemistry between Lu and Lex but the book felt like a strange cross between Adult Fiction and New Adult Romance. I was not a huge fan of the writing either. There were a lot of sentences that seemed awkward and way more telling the reader things than showing. I don’t need to be told Lu is smart. Show me Lu is smart.

I think this will appeal to readers who enjoy New Adult Romance or who like Second Chance books. I read it pretty fast and was eager to see what happened, but I think there was just too much that pulled me away from the characters and the story, I never felt connected to them.

Rating 5 Okay