Shattered

Shattered - Tracy Wolff
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is like the road runner. It took a little while to get warmed up. The first 25% I was ready to put it down. I didn't want to deal with another broody 20-something mired in his own head, even if I do like New Adult, and that's mostly what the genre is about. But, ultimately I enjoyed it and wanted to find out what happened at the end, but there was a fair amount of stuff that annoyed the heck out of me. There were a bunch of language issues that really irked me, but I'm not going to comment since I assume they'll be worked out in the final draft since this was an ARC.

Once the love story between Ash and Tansy got rolling it was an enjoyable read. Tansy worked pretty well as a heroine and the bit about her having cancer and being in remission wasn't overdone-- though I was worried considering Ash. I feel like especially with New Adult there is a tendency to go into angst-overdrive, but this book doesn't go there with her. It does however beat you over the head with Ash's issues, so much so that by the climax I was just SICK of hearing about it. Unlike the typical New Adult hero Ash doesn't go off the rails when, after his parents die, his world comes crashing down and start drinking and partying and having tons of meaningless sex (though he does the latter a little) instead he goes into ultimate protective mode. He's willing to do ANYTHING to protect his now-paralyzed fourteen year old brother. And he's completely over-the-top about it. But more than that, he is completely blind to the fact that he has stopped seeing his brother as a person and started seeing him as his injury. Ash's attitude toward Logan is well spelled out and the author demonstrates that well, but I grew tired of every single person in the story pointing this out to Ash and him remaining completely oblivious. Oblivious until of course, Tansy swoops in and makes miracles happen. There are multiple fights between Ash and Logan about Ash's role in Logan's life. I felt like this whole aspect of the book could have been stronger. Though Ash does finally go through the full character arc, his change happens all at once right at the end, after the reader has witnessed page after page of him reacting the same way to the same situations over and over again. It got tedious. I to be more invested in Ash and Logan coming to terms with their new roles in each others' lives, but it just wasn't there. I did appreciate that this book has more than just the romance fueling the characters to grow and change.

I also felt that the Ash's whole, "I can't be with Tansy because I can't be tied down because of my brother," excuse was flimsy at best. Though it went along with his own martyr-myself-for-my-brother, it felt stale. I was ready to put Ash to rest by the end of the book.

Tansy was an interesting character. She felt well-drawn and even though she was dealing with a lot of insecurities they didn't feel overdone. Their romance was cute and sweet, not in any way as angst-y as the rest of the book.

The snowboarding was a good time. A really good time, as was the setting of them traveling to Chile. I wished there had been more of the sport in the book in general.

This book is sort of typical New Adult fare. It's nothing super original or ground-breaking, but it's an entertaining enough way to spend a few hours. I didn't read the first book, Z and Ophelia's story, but based on this I would pick it up.