Jun 19, 2013

Review: True by Erin McCarthy

Title: True
Author: Erin McCarthy
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 5.7.2013
Pages: 235
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary
Series: True Believers #1
Source: eARC from Publisher

Rating: A-

Summary (from Goodreads):
When Rory Macintosh’s roommates find out that their studious and shy friend has never been with a guy, they decide that, as an act of kindness they’ll help her lose her virginity by hiring confident, tattooed bad boy Tyler Mann to do the job…unbeknownst to Rory.

Tyler knows he’s not good enough for Rory. She’s smart, doctor smart, while he’s barely scraping by at his EMT program, hoping to pull his younger brothers out of the hell their druggy mother has left them in. But he can’t resist taking up her roommates on an opportunity to get to know her better. There’s something about her honesty that keeps him coming back when he knows he shouldn’t…

Torn between common sense and desire, the two find themselves caught up in a passionate relationship. But when Tyler’s broken family threatens to destroy his future, and hers, Rory will need to decide whether to cut her ties to his risky world or follow her heart, no matter what the cost…

Review:
Despite my issues with someone’s best friends paying a known player to de-virginize her, I have to say True is one of my favorite new adult stories. Erin McCarthy is the author of young adult and adult novels, but this new adult novel was my first time with her (minds out of the gutter, people), and I absolutely loved every second.

Rory is a sweet, somewhat naïve character who embodies everything I love about the new adult genre. She’s a girl literally on the verge of adulthood. Watching her struggle and deal with real-life issues in a realistic, mature fashion was refreshing. Did she make mistakes? Absolutely, but she owned up to them and I loved watching her grow up.

I was a bit wary of Tyler at first. I’ve been burned by too many other fictional guys like him that just never seem to learn. Anytime you take a known womanizer and try to make him suddenly do an about-face for the love of a single girl he met days earlier always rubs me wrong. With Tyler, there is something blessedly different. Tyler is a guy that’s been forced to grow up all too quickly and his back story is both painful and horrifically true of so many young adults in the world today. I quickly lost all of my prejudices when reading Tyler—he’s strong, protective, and loyal, but McCarthy handles it perfectly. Tyler isn’t the guy who will punch you for staring too long at his girlfriend in the cafeteria. He doesn’t spiral off into absolute self-destruction when things don’t go his way.

In short, Rory and Tyler are like actual people. Actual people becoming adults and dealing with adult issues.

I must warn you that this book does have the token sexual assault scene that seems to run rampant in new adult fiction (seriously, why must we go there?), but it doesn’t detract from making you fall in love with Rory and Tyler and their love. McCarthy brilliantly leaves the end open for future books that with focus on secondary characters. I, for one, cannot wait.

If you’re looking for a new adult title with an incredible romance and characters you can truly root for, look no further than True.

Buy: Amazon


6 comments:

  1. YEAH HANNAH!!!! This is one of my very favorite NA books as well. I definitely agree with you on Rory's friends, I wanted to shake them and ask them if they even knew Rory at all, but other than that I loved everything about this book. Rory was so upfront about everything, I just wanted to hug her. And like you said, Tyler didn't fly off the handle and go all alpha, they both just had realistic problems and even more realistic ways of dealing with them. SO GOOD!

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  2. It doesn't happen very often that I absolutely want to read a book after just one review, but this is one of those rare books. Thanks for introducing me to it :)

    Ann@Blogging E-books

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  3. I REALLY enjoyed this one! The connection between the two characters was realistic and I liked that it was dramatic but not OVERLY dramatic.

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  4. This sounds amazing! I've been looking for a good new adult for a while and hopefully this will do the trick. Thanks for the review!

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  5. Great review, I'll add this one to my TBR list!

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  6. Definitely enjoyed this one!! It's one of the rare NA that used so many of the over-used tropes, but actually made me like them... I think because the characters were so well developed.

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