Review of Embrace

This is book #2 in the Evolve series by S.E. Hall. To read Amanda's review of book 1 go here.

Synopsis

Evan Allen is a handsome, athletic, southern gentleman who now attends Georgia Southern University for no good reason.

After what he expected to be the romantic gesture of the century, Evan is looking at no friends, a year of ineligibility on the football team, and no girl.

He's starting over alone and doesn't know quite how to proceed. Certain members of The Crew refuse to let him face things by himself, taking him under their wing, and it doesn't take the ladies long to notice him, either.

Sometimes life doesn't go as you had planned. Sometimes it goes better.

Embrace it.

Review

This book is not just Evan’s story but it follows the group of mismatched characters from S.E. Hall’s first book in the series. It tells the stories of Evan, Laney, Whitley, Dane, Sawyer, Tate, Bennett, Zack and Parker. The story however is only told from the perspectives of Evan, Laney, Dane and the epilogue is told through Sawyer’s point of view, setting him up to be the protagonist in Hall’s next novel.

I really enjoyed the first book, but I think Evan made this book even better. When the story begins he is lost, hurting and completely taken aback by the events in his life. He transferred schools, where he knows one person, who is the sole reason for his heartache and misery.

Whitley became one of my favorite characters. Although I did not like her in the first book she redeemed herself in this story. When we met her in the previous story, she comes across completely unlike the girl in this story. She not only redeems herself with readers, she also does with the other characters. She become friends with the people who had once disliked her.

Throughout the story, Evan fights his feelings for Whitley as he learns more about himself and his life without Laney at the center of it. He quickly becomes friends with Laney’s and works through his anger towards her in order to become friends again.  Whitley brings out the best in Evan and you can see that he does the same to her.

I loved Evan and Whitley’s story so much that I often times wanted to skip Laney and Dane’s parts. Don’t get me wrong, I like them, but there just was something about their relationship that bothered me. Maybe it was me feeling for Evan, I’m not sure.

Overall, this is a great New Adult book. It keeps you rooting not just for Evan and Whitley, Dane and Laney, and even Sawyer and Zach (hopefully he will have a future story of his own like Sawyer). It’s not just about their relationships, it is about their friendships and how they change and evolve with each step in their lives.

 

 

Try it for yourself! Goodreads | Amazon | Amazon UK

Amanda