Monday, June 16, 2014

Review of Very Bad Things (Briarcrest Academy #1) by Ilsa Madden-Mills

Synopsis: Born into a life of privilege and secrets, Nora Blakely has everything any nineteen-year-old girl could desire. She’s an accomplished pianist, a Texas beauty queen, and on her way to Princeton after high school. She’s perfect...

Leaving behind her million-dollar mansion and Jimmy Choos, she becomes a girl hell-bent on pushing the limits with alcohol, drugs, and meaningless sex.

Then she meets her soulmate. But he doesn’t want her.

When it comes to girls, twenty-five-year-old Leo Tate has one rule: never fall in love. His gym and his brother are all he cares about... until he meets Nora. He resists the pull of their attraction, hung up on their six year age difference.

As they struggle to stay away from each other, secrets will be revealed, tempers will flare, and hearts will be broken.

Welcome to Briarcrest Academy... where sometimes, the best things in life are Very Bad Things.

4.5 Stars!

Review: Nora was an absolute mess. She was borderline neurotic and a step away from having a panic attack at the very beginning of the book. She has spent her life trying to achieve perfection so that she can please her family, and yet, she has begun to realize that she will never be able to please them. She has a small breakdown, or what many probably just saw as a moment of teenage rebellion, and she decides that her senior year will be different. She will no longer try to be perfect - instead, she makes a list of things that will make her bad, instead. 

Add to that, she meets Leo Tate, the guardian for a new classmate of hers. He is there to see her mini rebellion at the beginning of the school year, and he feels just as drawn to her. He feels that she is too young for him, however, so he attempts to stay far from her. Nora keeps popping up in his life, however, and she even tries to try out some of her new "bad" ways on him. Leo has some serious baggage, too, though, so he fights just as hard to stay away from Nora, as she does to try to get him to give her a chance. Sebastian, Leo's younger brother and Nora's friend, also keeps trying to get the two of them together. 

I enjoyed Nora and Leo's story, and I think that there are probably a lot of people out there that do experience this type of mental abuse that Nora does. She is wealthy and seems to have everything, yet appearances can be very deceiving and Nora has not had much emotional or mental support in her life. Her mom is just evil, as is her step-brother, although, I am glad that the author also made an example of how mental and emotional abuse can certainly cause someone to act out in truly horrible ways. I was really disappointed in Nora's dad, however. He does seem to actually care about her, and he had the opportunity to step up and be a good dad...and he totally just bombs it, in my opinion. 

You have to check out this first book in the Briarcrest Academy books...there are some truly heinous and truly amazing characters. I can't wait to read about Cuba, next!

Jessica

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