Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Review: Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy Cherry


To Whom it May Concern,

It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.

When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.

When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours.

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels.

-Ashlyn Jennings


 

5 of the Brightest Stars!
 
Review by Allison East
 
Brittainy Cherry- you get five of the brightest stars in the sky, the Sun being the first, for touching my soul with this story. Sirius is the next brightest star, and you get that for making me fall in love with the complexity and also the simplicity of this story. The next brightest star is Canopus, and you get that star my love, for the tenacity of these characters and all they have had to witness, bear, and go through in their short, young lives. It's  astounding how most of them have conquered in their lives, and thrived. Next you get Alpha Centauri, as the next brightest- for weaving an intricate and elaborate plot line- so many twists and turns, loop de loops, free falls, and mountains in this story that I can't even begin to decipher what your outline was like- or if you even had one. And the last star (side note- if I could, I would give you all the stars in the sky for this lovely story- but I can't, fair is fair after all) Arcturus, I give you for a love affair- so sweet, gentle, angry, angsty, feisty, steamy, sensual and downright amazing- you have every right to be so, so proud of this masterpiece. Don't ever stop writing. Don't do it, even on your darkest days, you feel like giving up, please don't do it- this book is your ticket, and I hope you get all the credit that you deserve. Anyway- enough butt kissing and onto the review!

Teacher/student romances, ah the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden. Some people like them, some people don't- I for one, do. Especially if they are so close in age- and legal, whatever, it's a book! And as soon as I saw the title, I knew that this was going to be one of them.

Ashlyn is miserable, and rightly so- she is 19 and has just lost her twin sister to leukemia. Gabrielle was her best friend, her everything- she kept Ash sane, when her mom couldn't keep it together. Now, after she died, Ashlyn is all alone. Her mother sends her to live with her dad in Wisconsin, and she basically doesn't know him at all- he left their mother when they were very young.
 
Ashlyn has her senior year in high school still, she's 19 and was held back when she was younger. She has to move in with her dad and his new family, his girlfriend Rebecca and her two children Hailey and Ryan.

And it's when she goes to Wisconsin, she meets Daniel Daniels (yep there is a significance to the double names) at the train stop- by chance, and he invites her to the club where he is performing that night. Daniel has experienced loss too. He has lost his mother, then his father, and his brother is in jail. I love Mr. Daniels- he is my new book crush.

He is obsessed with Shakespeare- and it shows through his band- Romeo's Quest. And when Ashlyn hears him for the first time, she is a goner.

His voice was as light as rain, yet I knew it could create a rapid storm if he powered it to.

They have this intense connection, this crazy spark between them in which they are totally thrown for a loop on the day they both walk into class- she as a student, he as her teacher.

One of my favorite Daniel quotes:
I hated that I couldn't tell her how beautiful she looked each and every day. I hated that, when she walked into my classroom, I had to pretend that she wasn't on my mind. I hated how close we were but how distant we felt.

 I loved how beautiful she looked each and every day. I loved that, when she walked into my classroom, she was on my mind. I loved how distant we were but how close we felt.

Everything about this book screams out to me, from the bucket list left to Ash by her sister, to the letters, to Shakes, to the double doubles, all the damn quotes I highlighted, the song lyrics from a made up band,
 
 Five minutes ago I was lonely. Five minutes ago I walked alone. Five minutes later I told you the deepest secrets of my soul. And when you turned away I whispered, "Please don't go."~ Romeo's Quest. 
 
I adored the love, the heartbreak, and the tears- it had it all.
 
It has words such as these:
 
I want to be unafraid of the outcome of life. I want to remember to breathe in the laughter and cherish the tears. I want to dive into hope and land in love. I want to be alive when I grow up, because I have never been alive in all of my life.

Hands down one of my favorite books this year! Please read this it, if not for me- for yourself. You'll thank me later.


Amazon


Nook

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