The Book Voyagers: 5 stars

Title: Anything More Than Now
Author: Rebecca Paula
Series: Sutton College #2
Publishing: January 26th, 2016
Links: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Rating: 5 PIECE-OF-CAKE PERFECTION!

Goodreads blurb:

Reagan Landry is months away from college graduation, but instead of excitement, she's frozen by the fear of letting go — of her ex-boyfriend, of the comfortable life she created for herself in Portland, of the years-long search for her older sister who abandoned her as a homeless teen. When she’s finally forced to decide what's next, Reagan is met with another complication — her ex’s best friend, Noah Burke, who seems determined that she embraces what could be instead of what has been.

Drunkenly hooking up with his best friend’s ex, Reagan, is a mistake, but being secretly in love with her is so much worse when things seem one-sided. A disenchanted frat boy about to fail out of college, Noah has been living out someone else’s dream after a horrible accident five years earlier. Just when he thinks he's lost any chance he has with Reagan, she surprises him by agreeing to spend the summer together at his family's ranch in Montana.

And suddenly what started out as a complication between them becomes serious...until the past starts ripping apart their future.

I have been broken apart by these two - Reagan Landry and Noah Burke. It's a wonder I'm still able to write a coherent (hopefully!) review. To be honest, I'm tempted to just write all the reasons you should read this book, so I'm going to do that.

#1 Reagan Landry. Our own fighter. She is the girl who wants to get what she wants yet somehow something goes always wrong. She is that girl who screams within for something right to fall upon her life. She is a girl loving a boy so smooth with words you can't help to fall. It was SO NICE to meet Reagan up close now. We meet her in Between Everything and Us and she is Beau's ex gf. She lives in the same complex with them, but she keeps to herself. You know there's something she is not telling everyone and something that is eating at her. It's so great to hear her story. It was great to see her journey and character arc. She deserves all the stars in the sky.

#2 Noah Burke. He is the boy you read in poems. That scarred, tattooed, intelligent boy you want to know more about. There has been sadness and trouble in all his life. And when he sees Reagan for the first time it's like the skies open and he sees the sun shine. Their relationship, their dynamics together - it all starts a bit hate-to-love, but soon we find out there wasn't a lot of hate and more more love. In between, Rebecca Paula, with her poetic and meaningful writing, keep us captivated in the world of Reagan and Noah.

#3 Cuteness to the max. Whenever these two are together you just can't help to smile. There are so many little things happening between them, don't miss them! A tug of a hand, a caress of hair, a look of love - complete and utterly in love. It's a mystery how I didn't explode with all the cuteness happening. Seriously, guys, you know they are meant to be.

#4 Always there for each other. It's always nice to see whenever there is trouble/problem, the couple always stand by their side together. That even if they don't speak any words, you know in your heart they will support them and help them throughout anything.

#5 Don't know what to do after college? Are you failing any class? Reagan is almost graduating and in the book you see how she struggles to have something when she is done with college. And if you are experiencing the same thing, Rebecca Paula does it amazingly. I love this about RP's books; she always manages to get to my heart with real-life issues. And the characters, their stories - are so different from my own but yet something like these, it's like she sees into my heart and knows I need to hear this somehow.

I will forever love her books because her words make me happy. That's the simple truth. She is a master of words and she knows how to use them together. So if you ever want to find out why I have an undying love for this woman, pick up either Everly After, Between Everything and Us or Anything More Than Now (when it comes out, def!) You won't ever regret it.

Rebecca writes smart, emotional New Adult and historical romances featuring flawed characters struggling to find their place in the world, from Paris to Portland. She's a lover of rainy days, an unabashed anglophile, and a devote Earl Grey tea drinker. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their very spoiled cat, Bella. A wanderlust connoisseur, Rebecca can be caught daydreaming about her next travel adventure when not writing.

She is the author of EVERLY AFTER, BETWEEN EVERYTHING AND US, and the upcoming releases ETIQUETTE WITH THE DEVIL, A PROPER SCANDAL, and ANYTHING MORE THAN NOW.

Find her at:

Facebook's Rebecca's Readers | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram | Website

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Title: Just Visiting by Dahlia Adler
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
Published: November 17th, 2015
Buy: Amazon | B&N |
Rating:

Goodreads Synopsis:
Reagan Forrester wants out—out of her trailer park, out of reach of her freeloading mother, and out of the shadow of the relationship that made her the pariah of Charytan, Kansas.

Victoria Reyes wants in—in to a fashion design program, in to the arms of a cute guy who doesn't go to Charytan High, and in to a city where she won't stand out for being Mexican.

One thing the polar-opposite best friends do agree on is that wherever they go, they’re staying together. But when they set off on a series of college visits at the start of their senior year, they quickly see that the future doesn’t look quite like they expected. After two years of near-solitude following the betrayal of the ex-boyfriend who broke her heart, Reagan falls hard and fast for a Battlestar Galactica-loving, brilliant smile-sporting pre-med prospective... only to learn she's set herself up for heartbreak all over again. Meanwhile, Victoria runs full-speed toward all the things she thinks she wants… only to realize everything she’s looking for might be in the very place they've sworn to leave.

As both Reagan and Victoria struggle to learn who they are and what they want in the present, they discover just how much they don't know about each other's pasts. And when each learns what the other’s been hiding, they'll have to decide whether their friendship has a future.

Dahlia Adler's Just Visiting filled me with nostalgic feelings about those last months of high school and reminded me how I much likely felt the same as Reagan and Victoria. The anxious, nervous emotions inside you dancing around, waiting for that envelope/mail to arrive - the visits to the college and seeing how life will be for the next years to come, Dahlia Adler depicted it perfectly and I seriously related to them profoundly.

The main characters and the two girls that hold a friendship between them so close - Reagan and Victoria - spoke to me in tons. Since the first time they speak/think, I just knew I was going to love them. Their voices are so strong and their goals, feelings - they all went from the pages to my heart.

A list of why Dahlia Adler is amazing at writing:

Dahlia doesn't belittle anything and she puts the truth in words and it is real. The world is a cruel place where good people get the bad side of the coin. And sometimes you have to deal with it in the best possible way. We have Reagan, a girl who lives in a trailer park and wants to escape. I have a soft spot in my heart for Victoria but Reagan wants to be heard and she was heard. I heard her. She just wants to go to college and live with her best friend. As I said, Adler doesn't belittle anything - she portrays poverty in a way that she doesn't leave out and beautifies the hard parts.
She doesn't black out the sex scenes and she shows us (in a non-explicit way). People shouldn't be afraid of reading about sex. It happens. It's important that the young audiences know about this.
Reagan and Victoria's friendship made my day/night/month. It makes you think (if you don't have one) that YOU WANT ONE. A person who gets up in the morning to go help you out if you need it. A person who tells you your truths. A person who will love you even in the hardest times.
Victoria Reyes. This character has probably become one of my favorite female characters. She is a Latina and I don't read a lot of books with Latinas as their main characters. Her character filled me with joy because she practically voices out everything wrong in the country when it comes to the treatment Latinxs get from the people around them.

"I mean, maybe it's fun if you have a boyfriend or whatever, but considering every guy in this town is either scared of my skin color or thinks I'm hot because I'm "exotic," I'd rather spend every weekend playing Scrabble with my mother or giving myself and Reagan manicures."

And not only does Victoria voice it out, but also Reagan - when Dev is in her trailer and her family just arrived:

"I know several things he doesn't, like my parents will instantly be suspicious of his brown skin, and it will be glaringly obvious in their expressions and in every word they say."

Finally I want to say that I was very excited for this book to come out. And after reading I've come to the conclusion that everyone needs a Victoria or a Reagan in their lives. That friendship that you just know it's going to last until the end of times. Thank you Dahlia! This book is going to my list and it's never going to disappear.

I'm an Associate Editor of mathematics by day, a Copy Editor by night, and I do a whole lot of writing at every spare moment in between. I've also been a Production Intern and Editorial Assistant at Simon & Schuster, a Publicity Intern at HarperCollins, and a Fashion Intern at Maxim. (I'm kind of into that whole publishing thing.)

I'm the author of the Daylight Falls duology (consisting of Behind the Scenes and Under the Lights), the upcoming Just Visiting, and the NA novel Last Will and Testament. For information on those books and where you can buy them, check out My Books!

I live in New York City with my husband and our overstuffed bookshelves, and you can find me on Twitter at @MissDahlELama and blogging at B&N Teens, The Daily Dahlia, and YA Misfits. Come say hi!

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