Review: Carried Away

Carried Away by P. Dangelico
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Carrie's life is going to H-E double hockey sticks in a hand basket and she ends up back home in a town she had no desire to return to, Lake Placid New York. Jake Turner, is hiding in Lake Placid and find Carrie. 

There were many things I loved about this book. 

Carrie addresses her insecurities with her awkward teenage years and acne and her struggle with self esteem. I loved that this was a part of the book. So often romance novels are about the girl who never felt pretty but was beautiful the whole time. But many women experience growing into their beauty and self esteem, trying to shed the bullying and baggage we carry around from middle school and high school. 

Carrie goes through some amazing self discovery in figuring out what she wants out of her life and that was beautiful to read. Her Grandmother was a firecracker, and I loved all of her snark!

Lots of witty banter and smart dialogue. 

Jake was broody and mysterious. The story is told from Carrie's POV, so we only see broody Jake we don't get any inner monologue. I love a broody hero, but Jake was almost bully-ish. This started out as an enemies to lovers, because of all the bickering and shade Jake threw her way, but I am not sure it actually was enemies to lovers. I wanted it to either get more argumentative and have more bickering banter or not have any. It just felt like they didn't fully commit to their emotions when they started out as "enemies". 

I felt similarly with the storyline that involved Zelda, I really wanted to see more from Carrie in addressing the pain she was carrying from her relationship with her mother. Towards the end of the book there was a lot of twists and turns involving her family that I really wanted more time unpacking. It seemed like these big plot lines were introduces and then brushed aside. 

There was also one sentence near the end of the book which used to COVID as part of a smilie. At no other point in the book was COVID or Corona Virus mentioned so this seemed incongruous with the plot. I read this book as if it existed in a pre-COVID world. COVID was never mentioned before the last chapter and neither was any social distancing or PPE. It's really not a big deal, just interrupted my reading flow, I reread the paragraph several times to make sure I was following the storyline correctly. 

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were engaging and and enjoyable. They were just the right amount of damaged that makes me want to fix them. I read Waaay past my bedtime because I couldn't put the book down. I hope there are more books with the supporting characters, because I definitely think there are more stories to tell

I received an ARC of this book and voluntarily give my review.

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