The Book Trollop: {Review}{Giveaway} Living with Regret by Lisa De Jong

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

{Review}{Giveaway} Living with Regret by Lisa De Jong

I had my whole life mapped out. Perfect guy. Perfect friends. Everything was exactly the way I wanted it.
That was until that night--the one I can’t remember. It’s all my fault, and now the memories are all I have left of him. Of us.
My guilt drowns me until Sam Shea steps back into my life and helps me to the surface. He slowly opens my heart and crawls deep inside before I even realize what’s happening. I know I don’t deserve him.
While I’m trying to get used to my new life, pieces of that night slowly start to come back to me. Lies and secrets shatter everything I thought I knew.
Maybe I’m not the only one living with regret.

I have been a Lisa De Jong fan since I read When It Rains, so when I saw she was writing a book with Rachel's story, I was pissing myself with excitement because after reading Changing Forever and hearing about one of the characters kicking the bucket, I was all like WTF... Who, what, where, how... when... WHAAATTT?!?! I was so lost and confused on how this happened...

So when I get this book and finally find out what happened with this character, I was a bit shocked! But I was salivating to figure out the clues to the puzzle that was the disaster of that night. I was determined to finish this book and figure out the mystery because who doesn't love a good mystery to keep you guessing until the end? One of my favorite things to do when I read a book is to try and figure out what is going to happen before I get the details of it.

This book was hard for me to figure out, until about 50%, but I was finally putting the little clues together and I knew what the results were going to be. I was just waiting until I was proven right.

Once everything was revealed, I thought this story was really good. It was written well, in the sense that it flowed nicely, and there weren't vibrant errors or anything but something was just off with the book.

I kept waiting for the emotional punch of this story to punch me in the face and make me cry like a two year old, but it never came. I know Lisa is capable of the emotional punches because I don't think I read any part of When It Rains without crying like an asshole.

But with Rachel, there was some kind of disconnect with her emotions and what was going on around her. She reminded me of someone who was frozen with a ton of walls up and even though she should be feeling all these emotions, she was just like, blah when it came to whatever situation she was in. Or at least, I didn't feel any of the emotions she was trying to portray.

It was like she was an unemotional zombie...

I wanted to feel the punches, I wanted to be slapped, punched, kicked, and knocked on my ass from the emotional portrayals of what was happening because this story was anything but light. It was heavy in subject matter and even though I liked it, I still wanted more. Even with the romantic aspects, it was still a little disjointed and weird to me.

Plus, I wanted to know more about her family in the end and whether or not they got their shit together.

BUT the story itself was still really good and I didn't want to put it down so it still kept me invested, which is all I can really ask for in a story.

Overall, I give this story a 4 "I wanted more emotional punches" Stars!!! If you love Lisa De Jong's books, then I suggest reading this one too!! It can be read as a standalone but the books preceding this one, give you a good foundation of who these characters are so I suggest reading those too!