Review : Falling Away by Penelope Douglas

Summary (from Goodreads)

Title : Falling Away (Fall Away #3)
Author : Penelope Douglas
Publication Date : January 6th 2015
Publisher : Penguin NAL
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Jaxon is the guy she’s supposed to avoid.

K.C. is the girl he won’t let get away....

K. C. Carter has always followed the rules—until this year, when a mistake leaves her the talk of her college campus and her carefully arranged life comes crashing to a halt. Now she’s stuck in her small hometown for the summer to complete her court-ordered community service, and to make matters worse, trouble is living right next door.

Jaxon Trent is the worst kind of temptation and exactly what K.C. was supposed to stay away from in high school. But he never forgot her. She was the one girl who wouldn’t give him the time of day and the only one to ever say no. Fate has brought K.C. back into his life—except what he thought was a great twist of luck turns out to be too close for comfort. As the bond between them grows, he discovers that convincing K.C. to get out from her mother’s shadow is hard, but revealing the darkest parts of his soul is nearly impossible.…

Personal Thoughts

My relationship with this series has gone up and down over the course of the books. I disliked the first book, loved the second book, and now this third book left me feeling underwhelmed and frankly, a little disturbed. I'm going to be upfront and say it right away, Falling Away simply was not the book for me. It will certainly appeal to many readers, but not me. I actually should not have picked up this book before checking reviews so I have no one to blame but myself.

Having enjoyed the glimpses we got to Jaxon's character in Rival, I was looking forward to reading Falling Away. In fact, I was quite excited and I couldn't wait to get my hands onto a copy. However, Jaxon wound up seriously disappointing me. I've mentioned this multiple times, but something about "asshole bad boys" just does not work for me in books. I was expecting Jaxon to be a little different, maybe a bad boy with a softer and gentler side, but he wasn't that. He was aggressive, overly possessive and capricious. One moment he would be boiling with anger and the next he would be wooing his love interest. What truly bothered me though how disturbing he could be in certain scenes, especially the sex scenes. I was left feeling uncomfortable and scared out of my wits for the love interest, Juliette. I'm just not into the combination of violence and sex in my romance books which is why I can't read BDSM books. I also thought the author tried way too hard to try to make Jaxon unique with his disturbing past. I wanted to feel for him, but for the most part, I was so indifferent to Jaxon and his woes. I'm sure it's the case for many readers but when I can't connect with a character, I have a hard time enjoying the whole book. Juliet too was very mediocre as a character. I personally thought she was very weak and needed to grow a backbone. She did eventually grow up to stand up to others, but it still take a very long time. In the end, she's also a character I did not care for unfortunately.

My main issue with Falling Away besides the characters was the romance. I wanted to be able to feel an emotional connection between Jax and Juliet. They had phenomenal sexual chemistry for sure, but for some reason, I never really felt that emotional bond the two claimed to have. Additionally, I had some issues with the sex scenes in Falling Away. Listen, I'm no prude. I enjoy reading sex scenes in books from time to time, but when there are multiple intimate scenes in a book, it starts to read a lot like erotica and I lose interest. The thing about the scenes in Falling Away though was that they were too explicit, in my opinion. It made me feel like a voyeur, which made me skim many parts in the books. I certainly think the author could have toned down with them and still managed to write a sexy book. Another of my complaint when it comes to this series is the whole crappy parents, crappy background thing. This actually applies to many NA books, but it's a little crazy how far some authors are going to ensure that the characters in their books have a horrible, scarring past. It was emotional at first, but now, with how far-fetched some books are, it's getting a little counterproductive because they are not able to evoke any kind of emotions from my part. This happened with Falling Away as well. I feel horrible saying this, but I did not give a damn about the characters' backgrounds.

In the end, Falling Away was simply not the book for me. If you were a fan of Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire, go ahead and read Falling Away because you'll most likely enjoy it, but if you disliked that book, you're going to want to stay away from this as it's only going to make you uncomfortable. I was sad that I didn't enjoy it, but I can only blame myself.

Rating

Cover : 3/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 2/5
Writing : 3/5

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for the e-ARC of Falling Away.