Friday Book Review: Different Roads

FROM THE BACK COVER:

It's been said that when we look back over our lives, we are able to recognize the pivotal moments that in some way, shape, or form have led us to where we are today.

When Jacqueline Carter is fifteen, she crosses paths for the first time with Seth Thomas, a young man who unwittingly alters the direction of her life forever.  Jaq plans to break-up with her boyfriend on her sixteenth birthday. Instead, she is date-raped, and left emotionally broken. She builds a wall around her heart and begins spiraling downward on a road filled with drinking, drugs and physical abuse.  When Seth re-enters her life a few years later, the walls around her heart slowly come down and the two of them fall in love.  Unfortunately, sometimes, fate has other ideas, and we're forced down a different road from which we initially set out.

MY TWO CENTS:

To say that Jaq has had a rough life would be an understatement of epic proportions.  She is edgy, feisty, young, and trying to get through life, and make sense of all she has endured.  I loved her, but part of me (most likely the part of me that was once 19 years old and behaving badly) wanted to shake her.  It was hard not to fall in love with Seth, and equally not hard to want to strangle him.  If I have one wish; I would have loved to known his side of the story more.  But this story is so close to real life, and well, sometimes you do not get to know the whole story.  Damon was the perfect sexy bad boy that you want to change.  

This is a bittersweet story of love and loss on a grand scale.  I found myself completely disturbed while I was reading, but I was unable to put it down.  I was riveted.  The OMG ending made me want to strangle Lori Clark, and left me unsettled - but appreciative she did not give in to the "expected."  If it had ended any other way, it would have been just another love story, and a betrayal of the true story line.

I give it    and a 

Nice job, Ms. Clark!  I look forward to your next book!